Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

In my book How Not to Die, I suggest we try to center our diets around whole plant foods. But some plants are healthier than others. For example, you can apparently live extended periods eating practically nothing but white potatoes. That would, by definition, be a whole-food, plant-based diet—but not a very healthy one. All plant foods are not created equal.

The more I’ve researched over the years, the more I’ve come to realize that healthy foods are not necessarily interchangeable. Some foods and food groups have special nutrients not found in abundance elsewhere. For example, sulforaphane, the amazing liver-enzyme detox-boosting compound, is derived nearly exclusively from cruciferous vegetables. You could eat tons of other kinds of greens and vegetables on a given day, and get no appreciable sulforaphane if you didn’t eat something cruciferous.

It’s the same with flax seeds, and the anticancer lignan compounds. Flax may average a hundred times more lignans than other foods. And, mushrooms aren’t even plants at all; they belong to an entirely different biological classification, and may contain nutrients (like ergothioneine) not made anywhere in the plant kingdom. (So technically, maybe I should be referring to a whole food, plant- and fungus-based diet, but that just sounds kind of gross.)

It seems like every time I come home from the medical library buzzing with some exciting new data, my family rolls their eyes, sighs, and asks, “What can’t we eat now?” Or they’ll say, “Wait a second. Why does everything seem to have parsley in it all of a sudden, or something?” They’re very tolerant.

As the list of foods I tried to fit into my daily diet grew, I made a checklist and had it up on a little dry-erase board on the fridge, and we’d make a game out of ticking off the boxes. This evolved into my Daily Dozen: the checklist of all the things I try to fit into my daily routine.

By beans, I mean legumes, which also includes split peas, chickpeas, and lentils. You know, while eating a bowl of pea soup or dipping carrots into hummus may not seem like eating beans, it certainly counts. We should try to get three servings a day. A serving is defined as a quarter-cup of hummus or bean dip, a half-cup of cooked beans, split peas, lentils, tofu, or tempeh, or a full cup of fresh peas or sprouted lentils. Though peanuts are technically legumes, nutritionally, I’ve grouped them in the Nuts category, just as I would shunt green beans, snap peas, and string beans into the Other Vegetables category.

A serving of berries is a half-cup fresh or frozen, or a quarter-cup of dried. While, biologically speaking, avocados, bananas, and even watermelons are technically berries, I’m using the colloquial term for any small edible fruit—which is why I include kumquats and grapes and raisins, as well as fruits that are typically thought of as berries, but actually technically aren’t, such as blackberries, cherries, mulberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

For other fruits, a serving is a medium-sized fruit, a cup of cut-up fruit, or a quarter-cup of dried fruit. Again, I’m using the colloquial, rather than the botanical, definition. So, I place tomatoes in the Other Vegetables group.

Common cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cabbage, collards, and kale. I recommend at least one serving a day (typically a half-cup) and at least two additional servings of greens a day—cruciferous or otherwise. Serving sizes for other greens and vegetables are a cup for raw leafy vegetables, a half-cup for other raw or cooked non-leafy vegetables, and a quarter-cup for dried mushrooms.

Everyone should try to incorporate one tablespoon of ground flax seeds into their daily diet, in addition to a serving of nuts or other seeds. A quarter-cup of nuts is considered a serving, or two tablespoons of nut or seed butters, including peanut butter. (Chestnuts and coconuts, though, don’t nutritionally count as nuts.)

I also recommend one-quarter teaspoon a day of the spice turmeric, along with any other (salt-free) herbs and spices you may enjoy.

A serving of whole grains can be considered a half-cup of hot cereal, such as oatmeal, cooked whole grains, or so-called “pseudograins,” like amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa, or a half-cup of cooked pasta or corn kernels, a cup of ready-to-eat (cold) cereal, one tortilla or slice of bread, half a bagel or English muffin, or three cups of air-popped popcorn.

The serving size in the beverage category is one glass (twelve ounces), and the recommended five glasses a day is in addition to the water you get naturally from the foods in your diet. I explain my rationale in my video How Many Glasses of Water Should We Drink a Day?

Finally, I advise one daily “serving” of exercise, which can be split up over the day. I recommend ninety minutes of moderate-intensity activity each day, such as brisk (four miles per hour) walking or, forty minutes of vigorous activity (such as jogging or active sports) each day. I explain my reasoning for that in my video How Much Should You Exercise?

This may all sound like a lot of boxes to check, but it’s easy to knock off a bunch at a time. One simple peanut butter-banana sandwich, and you just checked off four boxes. Or, imagine sitting down to a big salad. Two cups of spinach, a handful of arugula, a handful of walnuts, a half-cup of chickpeas, a half-cup of red bell pepper, and a small tomato. You just knocked out seven boxes in one dish. Sprinkle on your flax, add a handful of goji berries, and enjoy it with a glass of water and fruit for dessert, and you just wiped out nearly half your daily check boxes in a single meal! And then, if you just eat it on your treadmill—just kidding!

Do I check off each glass of water I drink? No. In fact, I don’t even use the checklist anymore. I just used it initially as a tool to get me into a routine. You know, whenever I was sitting down to a meal, I would ask myself: Could I add greens to this? Could I add beans to this? (I always have an open can of beans in the fridge.) Can I sprinkle on some flax or pumpkin seeds, or maybe some dried fruit? The checklist just got me into the habit of thinking, How can I make this meal even healthier?

I also found the checklist helped with grocery shopping. Although I always keep bags of frozen berries and greens in the freezer, if I’m at the store and want to buy fresh produce for the week, it helps me figure out how much kale or blueberries I need.

The checklist also helps me picture what a meal might look like. Looking over the checklist, you’ll see that there are three servings each of beans, fruits, and whole grains, and about twice as many vegetables in total than any other component. So, glancing at my plate, I can imagine one quarter of it filled with grains, one quarter with legumes, and a half a plate filled with vegetables, along with maybe a side salad and fruit for dessert. I happen to like one-bowl meals, where everything’s mixed together, but the checklist still helps me to visualize. Instead of a big bowl of spaghetti with some veggies and lentils on top, I think of a big bowl of vegetables with some pasta and lentils mixed in. Instead of a big plate of quinoa with some stir-fried vegetables on top, I picture a meal that’s mostly vegetables—and oh, look! There’s some quinoa and beans in there too.

But, there’s no need to be obsessive about the Daily Dozen. You know, on hectic travel days, when I’ve burned through my snacks and get stuck in some airport food court, sometimes I’m lucky if I even hit a quarter of my goals. If you eat poorly one day, just try to eat better the next.

To help track your progress, volunteers created Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen apps for both iPhone and Android. You can download and use them both for free: no ads, no cost.

My hope is that the checklist will just serve as a helpful reminder to try to eat a variety of some the healthiest foods every day.

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

In my book How Not to Die, I suggest we try to center our diets around whole plant foods. But some plants are healthier than others. For example, you can apparently live extended periods eating practically nothing but white potatoes. That would, by definition, be a whole-food, plant-based diet—but not a very healthy one. All plant foods are not created equal.

The more I’ve researched over the years, the more I’ve come to realize that healthy foods are not necessarily interchangeable. Some foods and food groups have special nutrients not found in abundance elsewhere. For example, sulforaphane, the amazing liver-enzyme detox-boosting compound, is derived nearly exclusively from cruciferous vegetables. You could eat tons of other kinds of greens and vegetables on a given day, and get no appreciable sulforaphane if you didn’t eat something cruciferous.

It’s the same with flax seeds, and the anticancer lignan compounds. Flax may average a hundred times more lignans than other foods. And, mushrooms aren’t even plants at all; they belong to an entirely different biological classification, and may contain nutrients (like ergothioneine) not made anywhere in the plant kingdom. (So technically, maybe I should be referring to a whole food, plant- and fungus-based diet, but that just sounds kind of gross.)

It seems like every time I come home from the medical library buzzing with some exciting new data, my family rolls their eyes, sighs, and asks, “What can’t we eat now?” Or they’ll say, “Wait a second. Why does everything seem to have parsley in it all of a sudden, or something?” They’re very tolerant.

As the list of foods I tried to fit into my daily diet grew, I made a checklist and had it up on a little dry-erase board on the fridge, and we’d make a game out of ticking off the boxes. This evolved into my Daily Dozen: the checklist of all the things I try to fit into my daily routine.

By beans, I mean legumes, which also includes split peas, chickpeas, and lentils. You know, while eating a bowl of pea soup or dipping carrots into hummus may not seem like eating beans, it certainly counts. We should try to get three servings a day. A serving is defined as a quarter-cup of hummus or bean dip, a half-cup of cooked beans, split peas, lentils, tofu, or tempeh, or a full cup of fresh peas or sprouted lentils. Though peanuts are technically legumes, nutritionally, I’ve grouped them in the Nuts category, just as I would shunt green beans, snap peas, and string beans into the Other Vegetables category.

A serving of berries is a half-cup fresh or frozen, or a quarter-cup of dried. While, biologically speaking, avocados, bananas, and even watermelons are technically berries, I’m using the colloquial term for any small edible fruit—which is why I include kumquats and grapes and raisins, as well as fruits that are typically thought of as berries, but actually technically aren’t, such as blackberries, cherries, mulberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

For other fruits, a serving is a medium-sized fruit, a cup of cut-up fruit, or a quarter-cup of dried fruit. Again, I’m using the colloquial, rather than the botanical, definition. So, I place tomatoes in the Other Vegetables group.

Common cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cabbage, collards, and kale. I recommend at least one serving a day (typically a half-cup) and at least two additional servings of greens a day—cruciferous or otherwise. Serving sizes for other greens and vegetables are a cup for raw leafy vegetables, a half-cup for other raw or cooked non-leafy vegetables, and a quarter-cup for dried mushrooms.

Everyone should try to incorporate one tablespoon of ground flax seeds into their daily diet, in addition to a serving of nuts or other seeds. A quarter-cup of nuts is considered a serving, or two tablespoons of nut or seed butters, including peanut butter. (Chestnuts and coconuts, though, don’t nutritionally count as nuts.)

I also recommend one-quarter teaspoon a day of the spice turmeric, along with any other (salt-free) herbs and spices you may enjoy.

A serving of whole grains can be considered a half-cup of hot cereal, such as oatmeal, cooked whole grains, or so-called “pseudograins,” like amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa, or a half-cup of cooked pasta or corn kernels, a cup of ready-to-eat (cold) cereal, one tortilla or slice of bread, half a bagel or English muffin, or three cups of air-popped popcorn.

The serving size in the beverage category is one glass (twelve ounces), and the recommended five glasses a day is in addition to the water you get naturally from the foods in your diet. I explain my rationale in my video How Many Glasses of Water Should We Drink a Day?

Finally, I advise one daily “serving” of exercise, which can be split up over the day. I recommend ninety minutes of moderate-intensity activity each day, such as brisk (four miles per hour) walking or, forty minutes of vigorous activity (such as jogging or active sports) each day. I explain my reasoning for that in my video How Much Should You Exercise?

This may all sound like a lot of boxes to check, but it’s easy to knock off a bunch at a time. One simple peanut butter-banana sandwich, and you just checked off four boxes. Or, imagine sitting down to a big salad. Two cups of spinach, a handful of arugula, a handful of walnuts, a half-cup of chickpeas, a half-cup of red bell pepper, and a small tomato. You just knocked out seven boxes in one dish. Sprinkle on your flax, add a handful of goji berries, and enjoy it with a glass of water and fruit for dessert, and you just wiped out nearly half your daily check boxes in a single meal! And then, if you just eat it on your treadmill—just kidding!

Do I check off each glass of water I drink? No. In fact, I don’t even use the checklist anymore. I just used it initially as a tool to get me into a routine. You know, whenever I was sitting down to a meal, I would ask myself: Could I add greens to this? Could I add beans to this? (I always have an open can of beans in the fridge.) Can I sprinkle on some flax or pumpkin seeds, or maybe some dried fruit? The checklist just got me into the habit of thinking, How can I make this meal even healthier?

I also found the checklist helped with grocery shopping. Although I always keep bags of frozen berries and greens in the freezer, if I’m at the store and want to buy fresh produce for the week, it helps me figure out how much kale or blueberries I need.

The checklist also helps me picture what a meal might look like. Looking over the checklist, you’ll see that there are three servings each of beans, fruits, and whole grains, and about twice as many vegetables in total than any other component. So, glancing at my plate, I can imagine one quarter of it filled with grains, one quarter with legumes, and a half a plate filled with vegetables, along with maybe a side salad and fruit for dessert. I happen to like one-bowl meals, where everything’s mixed together, but the checklist still helps me to visualize. Instead of a big bowl of spaghetti with some veggies and lentils on top, I think of a big bowl of vegetables with some pasta and lentils mixed in. Instead of a big plate of quinoa with some stir-fried vegetables on top, I picture a meal that’s mostly vegetables—and oh, look! There’s some quinoa and beans in there too.

But, there’s no need to be obsessive about the Daily Dozen. You know, on hectic travel days, when I’ve burned through my snacks and get stuck in some airport food court, sometimes I’m lucky if I even hit a quarter of my goals. If you eat poorly one day, just try to eat better the next.

To help track your progress, volunteers created Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen apps for both iPhone and Android. You can download and use them both for free: no ads, no cost.

My hope is that the checklist will just serve as a helpful reminder to try to eat a variety of some the healthiest foods every day.

Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen Checklist

Doctor's Note

Whoa, that was quite the departure from our regular videos! Normally, we just show you the science from the primary sources in the peer-reviewed medical literature, but I want NutritionFacts.org to be more than just a reference site. I want it to be a practical guide on translating this mountain of data into day-to-day decisions. So that’s where my Daily Dozen slips into the mix. It’s available for free on iTunes as well as an Android app, thanks to an amazing group of volunteers through our Open Source Initiative.

If this video sounded familiar, it’s the same narration as the video posted months ago, but utilizing the talents of a new animator as an experiment: the video production company Purposeful Films, who heavily discounted their rates in support of our work. It’s more of a playful style, which I thought might be a good match for the content.

If this video inspired you to try eating the Daily Dozen, join our Daily Dozen Challenge! Learn more here.

If this video inspired you to try eating the Daily Dozen, join our Daily Dozen Challenge! Learn more here. Note: If you’re eating cups a day (as everyone should!) of dark green leafy vegetables I would recommend sticking to low-oxalate greens (i.e. basically any greens other than spinach, swiss chard, and beet greens).

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here.

322 responses to “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen Checklist”

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I would probably keep most of this check list. I eat turnip greens everyday. I eat oats everyday. I sprinkle Turmeric on my salad and my beans. I don’t forget the black pepper to grind on top of the turmeric powder. I do more of the flax seed and the nuts than is recommended here. I usually eat about 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed everyday and about 4 to 5 ounces of nuts. I eat berries when they have them at work, but not at home. I do eat 3 bananas a day as well as kiwis on my off days. On my work days, I don’t eat beans, but I do on my off days. I do drink a lot of coffee, but not tea. I do think that coffee has health benefits, however. I ride my bicycle to work everyday as well as other places on my off days. I would therefore recommend a type of exercise one can integrate with one’s lifestyle. Walking or bicycling can function both as exercise and as transportation. If a person works in a multi story building, they can always take the stairs rather than the elevator. Of course, Micheal Greger rides his treadmill desk upon which he can do other tasks. Even cleaning one’s house or mowing one’s lawn can be turned into exercise.

We have the daily dozen check list, my family added another box to the check list making it a Baker’s dozen!!!grin

The box we added was our daily dose if Dr. Greger! Every morning we watch the video that us sent to our email, or look on the Nutrition facts website and chose a topic.
As a result we are not only helping our iwn lives but those of our close friends live better, healthier, richet lives!!

Hey Doc!
If I ate this much food I would EXPLODE!! So there goes the idea that you starve on a WFPB diet. Never miss an opportunity to add a healthy food to your diet!! The daily dozen is a great way to get and stay on track.. It works for me!!
mitch

Not a fan of the busy video with lots of flipping images and quick pace. I’m looking for information rather than entertainment. I had to stop watching when the incredibly loud chime started to startle me and drown out the audio. This isn’t a good direction to be taking your videos…

Thank you David and Joe for your comments. I am sure you would agree that there are so many educational videos in the library for you to discover.This video by Dr Greger does cover a lot of great health practical information and it is answer to a lot of people who are always wondering what to eat on a whole food plant based diet. As you noticed there are a lot of information and images which helps for individuals who like images and are visual. I hope you can enjoy download of daily dozen app on your mobile. Thanks

Yes, of course Spring03, the info Dr Greger has compiled for us is outstanding as always! And as Dr J notes below, Dr Greger offers us free awesome tools.. resources that just are not found anywhere else. It’s all good.

David, I thought that this video was to publicize the launch of nnthe free apps — which are tools to help individuals start focussing on what and how much they should be eating. I’ve been asked more than once: “But what should I eat? I’ve no idea where to start a plant based diet.” My answer: “Veggies and fruits, whole grains and beans, seeds and nuts in moderation.” Which leads to follow-up questions (sometimes): “But how much of each?” I think the app helps to answer these questions.

And I find it refreshing that these apps are free. And the proceeds from the two books go to support the non-profit. In contrast to the “nutrition experts” that friends ask me about: the “expert” websites are full of items for sale, including books, videos, supplements, food products, etc. No free information whatsoever. To me, that is highly suspect, a huge red flag. Especially the supplements, “food products” (processed?), etc. I discount anything on these sites. I don’t bother with them.

Dr. Greger has covered this extensively. The lectins in legumes are destroyed rapidly by cooking. Populations that eat cooked beans demonstrate reduced premature death rates as compared to populations that don’t eat legumes. Ignore any hype on the hazards of lectins in legumes.

Yes — over-produced and cutesy-corny. The chimes are jarring, the puffs of smoke under dishes of good food are ridiculous and distracting, and the bounce effect every time a graphic slides in makes me seasick.

Dr. Greger’s information is terrific (as usual), but the animation and design people seem to be making the video about their skills, and thereby overpowering the message.

“Not a fan of the busy video with lots of flipping images and quick pace.”
That little thing in the lower left corner is a pause button. I usually look at the transcript but if things get too quick on the vid, I just pause, read, resume..
mitch

I agree with your opinion that the extra quick pace and flipping images makes it more difficult to watch the video and absorb the information. I also paused the video several times so I could think about the valuable information that Dr. Greger was presenting. I believe that the slower style is more effective for educating people, especially people that are just learning about the benefits of eating whole food plant-based diets.

I’m downright lazy with my health haha. I can only manage to keep up with the daily dozen by batch cooking all the whole grains and legumes and turning everything else on the list into two smoothies to have with breakfast and lunch. Makes it easier to eat with friends and family too because they all know to expect me to have a container of smoothie to go along with whatever they’re cooking (sometimes I skip lunch because I had my breakfast so late).

Anyone else have any neat or efficient tips to suggest or that they use for themselves?

Ryan, To save time, I also do the batch cooking of grains and beans. I freeze the batch in glass mason jars and and keep a thawed jar in the refridge, then use a couple of spoonfuls at almost every meal, either as a cereal mix for breakfast or in a soup for lunch or dinner.

I also do a lot of blending to save time and because I really don’t like to chew a lot. I make smoothies out of fruits & berries and drink the smoothies very slowly so the digestive enzymes in the mouth have plenty of time to mix with the food before being swallowed.

I also blend greens (kale, arugula, spinach etc) and a wide variety of vegetables (including cruciferous, allium, mushroom, etc, etc.), and use the blend in a soup mixed with the beans and grains. Again eating it very slowly.

I also make my own nut butter with a variety of nuts and seeds and eat that on whole grain bread made with sprouted grains.

The above is my regular routine that I do at home … I do occasionally eat meals that are prepared in the “regular” manner, especially when eating out, just so people won’t think that I’m too weird :-)

Hmm, not sure if this constitutes much as a tip, but I find one of the easiest (and fun) ways to incorporate a ton of variety in one meal is salads. I love putting lentils in my salads, grinding up some seeds with nutritional yeast and sprinkling those on, mixing a ton of veggies and sometimes even adding berries, I particularly love goji berries in salads. I don’t really worry about checking off a list though, I just simply build my entire diet around these foods and find it easy to incorporate all of them regularly.

Good to see I’m not the only one doing it this way. When I eat non-smoothie foods (like salads, soups, hummus, etc.) I will find myself adding more and more unhealthy stuff to the meal (croutons, cheese, sour cream, chips, etc) as time goes on. My willpower just slips back into old habits. So every day that I can, I stick to having these three smoothies throughout the day, which check off most of the boxes:

SMOOTHIE 1: 1 c cold brew coffee, 1/2 c soft tofu, 1/4 c nuts/seeds, 1/4 c blackstrap molasses, 1 c water (tastes a bit like a frap)
SMOOTHIE 2: veggie smoothie – based off of dr. greger’s recipe
SMOOTHIE 3: Fruit smoothie – different fruits every time but I always make sure to include berries, and a handful of greens, and flax seeds

By the end of the day, I just try to make sure that dinner includes my whole grains, some more beans, and some cruciferous veggies, and then I’ve done the whole checklist! I often fail at this last step (I often have a crap dinner) but that is just proof of how well the smoothies are working out for me; the predictable, quick meals, all prepared at the start of the day and waiting at the front of the fridge, have really been a great help for eating healthier.

Eating the same thing day after day, through a straw, is off putting to many, I’m sure, but I’ve got a lot of eating addiction issues, binge eating problems, etc., and this seems to be able to keep a lot of bad habits in check and help me feel like, even if I eat fried chicken for dinner, well hey, at least I got those smoothies in, and tomorrow will be better than today.

My favorite snippet? “Researchers found that increased spending on health care and increases in specialized care were both associated with longer life expectancy and less mortality in the countries studied. But pharmaceutical industry expansion was linked to negative health effects.” Who here is surprised? X’D

“We found that as the pharmaceutical industry expands, there is a decrease in the beneficial impact of medical specialization on population health.”

” increased sales and more money spent on research and development — were linked to lower life expectancy among women aged 65 and older, and with increased mortality rates.”

The thing is that it is a business and businesses are run by business people. They have increased the sales. They have increased growth. They have achieved their purpose and mission of success. But they are the owners of the business. The success is meant for them not you. Can’t you see the conflict? They are only going to do what is successful for them. Now you have to do what is successful to you as you are the owner of your body.

I came across a Medscape article on monounsaturated fatty acids and mortalty earlier today. It is not directly on topic but it does validate plant based diets and thereby – at a stretch – the daily dozen. Here’s an extract

“It is very interesting to see adverse associations between animal sources of monounsaturated fatty acids and cardiovascular disease risk,” said Kris-Etherton, who is a spokesperson for the American Heart Association.

“We have always thought that monounsaturated fatty acids were a neutral fatty acid class,” she said. “The new research is now showing that plant monounsaturated fatty acids are beneficial, whereas animal monounsaturated fatty acids are not — and in fact, they are adversely associated with cardiovascular disease risk.”

With existing challenges in conveying the risks and benefits of the various types of fats, additional efforts to underscore the differences between plant- and animal-based monounsaturated fatty acids may not help matters, Kris-Etherton added.

“This could be very confusing to consumers,” she said. “A simple message is that consumers should follow current dietary guidelines and substitute saturated fats with unsaturated fats, both monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids.”

“Major sources of saturated fat are animal foods and major food sources of monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids are plant foods,” she added. “So, in substituting unsaturated fatty acids for saturated fatty acids, people will be eating more plant-based and less animal monounsaturated fatty acids.”https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/894598?src=wnl_edit_tpal&uac=129079FG#vp_2

“The new research is now showing that plant monounsaturated fatty acids are beneficial, whereas animal monounsaturated fatty acids are not — and in fact, they are adversely associated with cardiovascular disease risk.”

I suspected as much so am unsurprised but still find it fascinating and it’s exciting to see them looking into sources as opposed to simply looking at a single nutrient. But I foresee many an angry Paleo in the light of this research.

Is there anyone in this community of vegans are partial vegans who eats a “raw” diet? I find that cooked food,
even vegan cooked food (whole grains, beans) inflame me and exhaust me. Not fun. Lots of raw fruit, veggies,
nuts, seeds, avocados seem OK.

Cody, this isn’t a group of vegans or even a group of plant based eaters, there’s a lot of different people here but most go with the science and eat a WFBP or mostly WFPB diet. Veganism, however, is not a diet, it’s a moral and ethical way of life that excludes the use or exploitation of other animals so the fore there is no such thing as a “partial vegan.” I just wanted to clarify.

if people didn’t eat cows there would not be a bunch of happy cows running around the world as pets there just would not be as many cows on the planet – which is a good for the environment — however for the animal activist, maybe the cow would rather live a crummy life than not to live at all— 100% plant base diet is about saving the health of people and the planet. the animal activist vegans are hurting the powerful message that needs to get out. i reversed prostate cancer on a 100% plant diet and that is the important message that needs to get out there.

This is a great video. Obviously it’s very healthy, but I wonder how many calories you would get eating this way with so many vegetables. I think that if you were very active you’d probably need to increase the starches and whole grains and eat that big plate of whole grain spaghetti with lentils and tomatoes…

The portobellos thing makes me think of a study I was reading yesterday where they believe that antioxidants may make Cancer spread faster. What occurred to me was that there might be things like this in some foods which they haven’t figured out yet.

It doesn’t make sense to me that it would be the antioxidants which make it spread because then WFPB would be higher in Cancer, wouldn’t it?

I am not arguing with the study, but isn’t it more likely something like this or something like the bacteria on certain foods or antioxidants affecting growth hormone or Metathione or somethibg?

It made me understand that I don’t understand the difference between antioxidants and ORAC value. It was Acai berries I was looking up when I found the study.

If anyone has already read it and processed the information and has an answer, I would appreciate hearing it.

I tried just posting Do antioxidants cause Cancer on Dr Gregers live Q&A page, but this process here is about choosing healthier foods and I am going to believe that there might be things like amazing bacteria on white potatoes or who knows what other way of measuring the healthiness of some foods.

Bok Chou was one with not much Cancer killing properties, but you come over to osteoporosis and it was in the list of nutrient dense foods for that.

Yes, Cancer may seem more deadly, but people die soon after falls when they are elderly has already been established, so maybe we need other ways with this eating the healthiest food diet?

Hi Deb. From what I understand of the topic, free radicals are often the byproducts of regular metabolic functions as well as energy production. Often they are damaging to cells which is why antioxidants are beneficial. Cancer cells which grow very rapidly often produce much more free radicals and then regular cells do so in some ways they benefit more from antioxidants than regular cells. That is why you sometimes hear that antioxidants cause cancer.

That’s not the whole story though. Studies showing that antioxidants cause cancer are typically supplemented antioxidants (normally just a single antioxidant being reviewed). Vitamins in other words. Whole plant foods come with a balanced amount of difference antioxidants as well as numerous phytochemicals that together drastically reduce your chances of cancer. I hope this helps

According to Dr. Oz, one mechanism that the supplements cause Cancer “… it appeared that the antioxidants actually inhibited the activity of a gene called p53 – whose job it is to destroy cancer cells! So what this study suggests, is that in high doses, antioxidants may actually help protect the cancer cells by turning off the p53 cancer sweeper, which then enables the cancer to continue to grow.”

This study demonstrates for the first time that phenethyl isothiocyante (PEITC), a naturally-occurring compound, can selectively deplete mutant p53. The authors also made an intriguing observation that the depletion of mutant p53 in human cancer cells is accompanied by restoration of the wild type p53. PEITC is a member of the isothiocyanate family compounds found in cruciferous vegetables, such as watercress, broccoli and cabbage. PEITC has been shown to have cancer preventive activity.

The researchers found that PEITC not only decreases the level of mutated p53 protein in tumor cells, but also restores the “wild type” or normal activity to mutated p53. The effect of this is that tumor cell lines with mutant p53 became more sensitive to PEITC-induced cytotoxicity than tumor cells with wild type p53, suggesting that the normal p53 checkpoint control pathways have been restored in the mutant p53-expressing tumor cells. This novel finding suggests that the PEITC and other compounds in the isothiocyante family could play important role in both cancer prevention and treatment of human cancers with mutant p53.

That brings me back to looking up RoundUp, because if it affects this gene, then it is a Cancer Causer and maybe more ways than one, because we already heard in a Dr. Greger video that it altars the gut bacteria, but he said that we don’t know whether the bacteria from fruits and veggies with RoundUp are good guys or bad guys, but I already know they are gonna be the bad guys.

This was seen in laboratory animals fed a contaminated diet by glyphosate. We even saw this in worm experiments done by a student which Stephanie and I mentored. A lot of data was developed in the experiments which has not been published, but I evaluated the bacteria colonies and the effects that both GM proteins and glyphosate had on the soil communities and the effects exhibited on the worms. Both the stacked GM events and glyphosate caused distinct reactions in populations and weight gain. So, to sum up, it’s all about the disruption of bacterial homeostasis, that is where obesity and all chronic disease begins. The imbalance and overgrowth of species causes obesity and it can also cause anorexia as well as worsening symptoms of autism, ADHD, other neurosis and a plethora of chronic disease states which include tumorigenic growth and cancers of major glands and organs.

……

Carbohydrate metabolism, which include metabolization of the isomers of sugar are processed in different parts of the intestines, particularly in the ilea and secum, by different species of bacterial colonies. Some of the enzymes that metabolize sugar are sucrose-isomaltase, maltase-glucoamylase and lactase. Lactase metabolizes disaccharide and lactose (milk sugar) and this enzyme also lines the gut. Glyphosate disrupts such enzymes.

“The homeostasis or balance of bacteria such as, Clostridia sp., Bacteriodetes sp., and Fecalis sp. Are three main species that show both increased weight gain and weight loss depending on their balance.

When gut bacteria are not in balance, they display hyperactive behavior and and produce biomolecules that interfere with the regulation of IGF-1, Insulin secretion, Amylin and Grehlin. Additionally, various species of bacteria release proteases which destroy immunoglobulins such as IgA, IgG and IgM, imbalances which can lead to immunodeficiencies and many different pathologies.”

They also talk about it causing heavy metals in the body to become more toxic.

“Glyphosate makes these toxins much more toxic in part because it interferes with CYP enzymes that degrade them (in the case of the organic compounds) and because it disrupts the body’s normal management of metals”

That gives me an answer about my lunch salad. I don’t want to eat anything not organic.

I am having a hard time finding organic edamame, but the stores are getting better at selling organic everything.

It is harder in the Winter, but I even had organic grapes until a few weeks ago. (And, because I don’t like berries, organic grapes is one of the few things which gets me that “berry’ category. LOL!)

Ivail, not sure if you’ve seen it, but Dr. Greger already has a video addressing the toxin in mushrooms and says that light cooking is good enough at destroying it. I don’t remember the name of the toxin. Also he ranked white button (which is the same as a mini bella and portabella at different levels of maturity) as the second healthiest mushroom.
I do not worry about it however, and I regularly choose to consume raw mushrooms. From my understanding, the study done was done by extracting and isolating the toxin as opposed to to testing the whole food. And because most or all foods contain some level of some toxin, you could essentially do that with many other healthy foods.

Even when they tested the whole avocado on human cells in a Petri dish and it showed it harmed healthy cells, when testing the actual INGESTION of avocados it showed that it did not harm healthy cells.

Whole Foods and actual ingestion is a far cry from extracted compounds and perti dishes.

Linnaeus originally classified vereything into three main kingdoms – animals, plants and minerals. And that’s way many of us laypeople (me included) still think. The professionals though have moved on.

Not sure why people find the presentation too busy, I loved it, and considering all of the information it contains I’d say Good Job Dr. Greger!! I wonder if people realize how much time and effort such a presentation needs. I guess they would prefer Dr. Greger would spoon feed them. I myself paused the video at the list and put it into my Evernotes so I can refer back to it until I download his app.

Excuse me ? Having watched each video presentation of Dr Greger’s since 2011, I can assure you I have seen my share of good videos, and better videos. My comment was only about my preferences in the techniques used to make the video. I have no trouble assimilating the info (which in this case is a repetition of previously viewed ideas) .

Nicki this is actually a new version of a previously made video by Dr. Gregervand his team. I personally prefer the old style, was kind of entertaining but wouldn’t want to see this as a recurring style as I agree it was a little too busy and had a slight commercial-y feel to it. It’s just a matter of preference…. not knocking those who made it, they did a good job.

Not sure why people find the presentation too busy, I loved it, and considering all of the information it contains I’d say Good Job Dr. Greger!! I wonder if people realize how much time and effort such a presentation needs. I actually loved the visuals how he changes a bowl into a super healthy one, especially the one with quinoa since I tend to make too much. I guess they would prefer Dr. Greger would spoon feed them. I myself paused the video at the list and put it into my Evernotes so I can refer back to it until I download his app.

I also found the video a bit fast, but it did not negate the wealth of info presented. As someone stated, you could pause the video to assimilate what you needed. I think a different approach, with a bit of humor and visuals, is important. Different approaches appeal to different folks. We all learn differently. The info is important and timely, no matter how it is presented. Personally, I got alot out of the detailed information, and yes, I did have to pause at a few places to take it in. No problem! Thanks for this simple and practical presentation.

Rosy,
I agree that this is a super informative video. It’s certainly far more graphic than the 1st iteration of the daily dozen video. For the most part, I found that this new version was an improvement and I like it better, but I’d agree with some of the points made by those who criticized it. For example, the bounce effect every time a graphic slides in is definitely silly overkill in my mind. I find that only detracts from the video.

“The potato is a very important constituent of the diet of many civilized nations, and it may be considered to furnish, with bread, the bulk of the food of the rural populations of countries such as Poland and Russia. There is little doubt that the Polish or Russian peasant is nevertheless very healthy and able to do extremely hard work under trying conditions. Deficiency diseases such as beriberi, pellagra or scurvy are practically unknown in Poland.”

The only conclusion that I can possibly come to from these statements is that the potato is the healthiest food on the face of the earth. Which is what Dr. John McDougall has been saying for decades. The Daily Dozen list should have a check box just for potatoes. And a big one at that.

Do you think the fact that Americans tend to cook it in oil, smother it in sour cream or bathe it in butter and shake salt all over it might be why it has a bad reputation?

I am going to say that none of the ways I eat white potato are healthy. I am pondering soups maybe, because I feel like they need moisture and flavor, but it tends to be cream soups, which come to mind and I haven’t figured out a vegan version.

I quarter them and then slice into about one quarter inch thick slices. Mix them with collards in a microwave dish and add a little water. Then season with salt, pepper, MSG, turmeric and a megaton of oregano, thyme, basil, and parsley. Microwave covered, to desired tenderness stirring a few times. This is my lunch, almost every day. I top with, horseradish, chipotle peppers, salsa, hot sauce, etc. Fabulous.

Deb, SO easy to make vegan cream based soups, etc! Cauliflower works amazingly and I’ve heard of potato working as well. Also cashews are brilliant for this! Here are a couple of example vegan recipes (I love both of these!):

^I actually forgot to mention that I change the cream of mushroom recipe a bit and omit the oil and just use water instead – something I do with all recipes that call for cooking with oil, just recently I did the whole avocado in place of oil for baking and it worked amazingly!

IIRC, potatoes and sweet potatoes are from different families. But according to Dr. McDougall, both provide complete nutrition for a human to thrive on.

I like both and they are a major daily source of calories for me. Sweet potatoes are terrific raw too. And the more I eat, the older I get, but my times just keep getting faster. Again, the two statements I quoted from this very video, are by definition, proof that there is no better food. One of the very few points of disagreement I have with Dr. Greger.

I wouldn’t call potatoes the healthiest food on the planet but I think they’re a highly nutritious and valuable food. I don’t think fears about the toxin (I can’t quite remember the name) are at all justified apart from avoiding green potatoes, personally.

I love that Dr. Greger put this together but I don’t use the app or check off any list. For me that would drive me crazy and I don’t view it as necessary. Instead I take all the brilliant info I’ve learned from Greger and others (but mostly Dr. Greger) and just make sure my diet consists of these things regularly. If I don’t eat a grain one day I don’t worry about it because I ate other awesome things, for example. And I try to incorporate as many healthful things in my recipes as I can which I actually find fun… and rewarding!

90-something percent of Americans don’t eat a single serving of fruit or beans or leafy greens and if they eat greens, it is iceberg lettuce.

That is a good reason to do an App like this for people who have to make such a big change.

I probably won’t do the App either, but I hadn’t been eating the beans and having a way of thinking about it and having a concept of serving size is a good thing.

I remember a Seinfeld joke (I think it was Seinfeld, could be wrong) but it was a question like “What type of person would eat Chinese food every day?” and the punch line was something like “A Chinese person.”

I think when people go from never eating any to trying to figure out how to eat 3 servings of beans per day, they probably need help transitioning to it.

I contrast that to Dr. Barnard’s having people eat anything vegan, and having them immediately add in Twizzler’s.

Some people successfully get off animal products, but never succeed at getting to healthy food.

Deb, I absolutely agree with you. For me personally I just don’t find the need but nevertheless, the only reason I know how to eat for optimal health is due to Dr. Greger. Before that, I actually had people convince me that beans were unhealthy!! Some scary information out there…

True that vegan junk food isn’t MUCH butter, however I still say it’s significantly better. When first going vegan I actually ate lots of refined foods and junk food and still experienced significant health improvements. But SO much better on a WFPB diet needless to say!

I love the Daily Dozen check list. I thought I was doing rather well before using it because I ate a lot of greens & whole grains. But when I did start using the DD check list, I realized that I needed to eat more fruit and beans. It really helps me stay on track & got me off chocolate for good. I used to eat a small piece every now & then, but now I don’t even want it anymore.

At first it was challenge to check off all the boxes. If I made it to 90%, I thought I was doing pretty well. Now I don’t have any trouble checking them all off & then some. And without gaining any weight.

Thank you Dr. Greger & NF Staff for all the work you do & sharing it in a way that makes it easy for everyone to follow & learn!

I love this video! Beautiful use of color in the graphics. I liked how you provided many different examples and the data included was short and to the point. Thank you! Please do more of these videos. I enjoyed this and will be sharing this with my friends.

I love the Daily Dozen App, but I have noticed that, since the update, some of the boxes are almost impossible to check! Usually, the first few are easy, then I can’t check anymore boxes. Has anyone else had this problem?

white button/mini bella/portaobella is ranked as the second healthiest mushroom by Dr. Greger. I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t even worry about raw mushrooms because from my understanding, when studying the toxin found within them which is destroyed by light cooking, they actually extracted and isolated the toxin and did not test the whole food and that is something that one could do with virtually any healthy food. You could extract and isolate cyanide from flax, test that, and say flax was dangerous and so on. That’s my personal take on it.

To me, it seems if you ate more vegetables and little / no grain you would probably be better off, but I may be missing something.

Don’t get me wrong, if I was starving I would certainly eat a bowl of oatmeal, but in a situation where I can freely choose what to eat I tend to have an extra avocado and almost never eat high grains.

Every credible health authority from the World Health rganization down recommends increased whole grain (WG) consumption.

These conclusions are supported by stdies such as these

“Our meta-analysis demonstrated inverse associations of WG intake with total and cause-specific mortality, and findings were particularly strong and robust for CVD mortality. These findings further support current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommends at least 3 servings/day of WG intake”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4910651/

and

“These data indicate that higher whole grain consumption is associated with lower total and CVD mortality in U.S. men and women, independent of other dietary and lifestyle factors. These results are in line with recommendations that promote increased whole grain consumption to facilitate disease prevention.”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429593/

I may be mistaken, but I think when whole grains are studied, they are compared against a diet of grains. I am not sure if there is a study which compared whole grain, grain, and no-grain.

It wouldn’t surprise me that whole grain would be healthier than the grain… but is it healthier than complete exclusion? (it also wouldn’t surprise me if the consumers of whole grains also exercised more as, at least in America, whole grain consumption is believed to be part of a healthy lifestyle.)

Eating a diet that is in accordance with the scientific data available can be tricky because it limits you to only topics that have already been studied in detail.

Thnks Ryan. You’d really have to dig down into the studies themselves to see what people who wern’t eating whole grains, were consuming in their place. I haven’t done that although I suspect that the expert scientific panels that came up with the World Health Organization and US Dietary Guidelines recommendations to eat more whole grains did consider the points you raise. Certainly, studies routinely do try to control for factors such as exercise and replacement nutrients

On the other hand, you could probably point to the traditional Okinawan Diet which was very healthy but contained relatively few grains compared to the diet eaten by other Japanese. However, even that provided 19% of total calories from grains.http://www.okicent.org/docs/anyas_cr_diet_2007_1114_434s.pdf

Most WFPB experts recommend low fat WFPB diets for optimum health and I am not sure how they would regard snacking on high fat foods like avocadoes. Both Esselstyn and Ornish have demonstrated in trials that WFPB diets containing less than 10% fat can prevent and indeed reverse heart disease. If you are choosing avocadoes in place of grains you are likely to significantly exceed this 10%.

However, for the sake of comleteness, I should add that the WHO recomends a minimum of 15% of total calories should come from (healthy) fats and the US Institute of Medicine suggests a minimum of 20%. On the other hand, the traditional Okinawan diet was only about 6% fat and delivered an extraordinary number of healthy centenarians.

Whatever the cranks may claim, there is really no reason why people without specific intolerances or allergies should avoiid them. And there does appear to be good evidence that we benefit from eating them. Lectins are often quoted as reasons not to eat grains. Dr Greger has a video or two on this and Dr Mirkin recently wrote an article on thsi topic too. IMHO, it’s worth a read.https://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/lectin-containing-foods-are-good-for-you.html

Yes, I do eat beans, in small quantities as well as nuts (Macadamia and Brazil) and some flax / chia / pumpkin seeds. I like to be fairly close to ketogenic diet… but sometimes I think I may be missing out by not eating grains (and other white carbs).

Beans and other legumes were among the first if not the first plants to be domesticated and farmed. They would not have been so if they had not already been an important (wild) food source for our paleo ancestors..

In fact, chimps, howler monkeys, mangabey monkeys and even gorillas are known to consume wild legumes. Other primates may do so as well but I have not researched this. The point though is that legumes have likely been part of the human diet since before our ancestors even became human.

The paleo arguments against beans/legumes are largely ideological rather than evidence-based it seems to me. In any case, the evidence seems to suggest that legume consumption is associated with greater longevity whatever the role of thes foods in our evolutionary history.

I did a longer more detailed post complete with refernces but it disappeared when I attempted to post it. Grrrr

Hasten the day when the NF site gets a new comment system that doesn’t arbitrarily delete posts AND which allows postes to edit their comments!

JJ – lots of beans, also known as legumes, can be eaten raw. Think sugar snap peas, English peas (which I put fresh into my salads), garden green beans when young and tender munched right off the vine. Many of the beans that we get in the grocery store are dried which does require cooking to rehydrate them. Kidney beans do need to be cooked. When I was a child my siblings and I used to play hide-n-seek in the family farm’s soybean fields. We’d hide in the rows munching on fresh tender soybeans right from the pods while watching the cloud formations above us waiting to be found. The soybeans were tender, sweet and juicy. No intestinal difficulties.

jj, actually, the science shows that not only are beans one of the healthiest foods associated with increased lifespan, but cooked beans in particular have benefits that sprouted do not. On the other hand, sprouted beans and legumes have some unique benefits as well.
I also only know of kidney beans being harmful when eaten raw, but even very LIGHTLY cooking them fixes the problem. Dr. Greger has videos on this that I highly suggest watching.

On the standard web forum, the option to edit recent comments is routinely provided, even expected by users. The benefits are obvious– people can post more accurately if they can correct overlooked misspellings, misstatements, etc.

So, I could not agree more to your call for a return to edit options on this WordPress forum. At one time, even the cooks in the website back room provided a brief, timed edit window.

There is some concern for forum security in keeping an edit window “open” perpetually, but a brief edit interval is a necessary and very modest request to make of any forum administrator, who have that option at their fingertips.

Deletion of posts should be done very sparingly, because users will complain and once out, the open secret creates a bad forum atmosphere. Policy on deletion of posts is one measure of how user-friendly and attentive a website forum tries to be. To have, and observe, a written forum policy is one thing, but to delete arbitrarily is the vice of a one who operates from gut feeling, and prefers not to be bothered with real administration.

Thanks for your comments. I should say that the deletion of posts is not deliberate.

It appears to happen because of a system or software glitch. It only occurs when I post links to scientific journals and other websites. Most weblinks are OK but for some reason, a tiny minority of links cause the post to simply disappear into the ether. I know this because I sometimes compose posts in Notepad then copy-paste here. When a post disappears, I simply paste again but delete the link and hey-presto, the post appears.

Last time though I forgot. And to save time, I seldom proof-read my posts before posting – with the inevitable consequences.

On the standard web forum, the option to edit recent comments is routinely provided, even expected by users. The benefits are obvious– people can post more accurately if they can correct overlooked misspellings, misstatements, etc.

So, I could not agree more to your call for a return to edit options on this WordPress forum. At one time, even the cooks in the website back room provided a brief, timed edit window.

There is some concern for forum security in keeping an edit window “open” perpetually, but a brief edit interval is a necessary and very modest request to make of any forum administrator, who have that option at their fingertips.

Deletion of posts should be done very sparingly, because users will complain and once out, the open secret creates a bad forum atmosphere. Policy on deletion of posts is one measure of how user-friendly and attentive a website forum tries to be. To have, and observe, a written forum policy is one thing, but to delete arbitrarily is the vice of a one who operates from gut feeling, and prefers not to be bothered with real administration.

.GLAD TO HEAR THAT, TG (responding to TG, posting on April 1st, 2018 at 1:20 am)

When I read your “Grrrrr” at having your post simply disappear, and after your use of the words “arbitrarily delete posts”, that left the impression with me you thought you might have been censored, for some reason.

Happily, there is another possibility– security. These days, the typical forum must be hyper-cautious against malware compromise. Any forum post which contains links to known website threats (or sites even suspected to be compromised) can be deleted as a potential link to malware.

Today, matters have reached the point that tracking suspected site infections is too difficult, time consuming and expensive. About 2015, deletion of any and all posts with either hyperlinked text or explicit URLs became policy at many corporate media news websites, such as CBSNews.com. Place an innocent link to even a Department of Homeland Security public document, and your post will disappear, automatically, no questions asked. Website policy now explicitly excludes web links from any post.

Which is why I am pleasantly surprised Dr. Greger still recognizes the value of web links, since his site is based on scientific research which we cannot read without such links. That said, his liberal policy may not continue forever because the outside threat level is becoming too great.

There is a workaround, however, in that web links need not be explicitly stated in the text, but even that indirect parlance can become a burden to many posters, after a while.

Hi Ryan – I’m Janelle, a Registered Dietitian and a Health Support Volunteer for NutritionFacts.org. Thanks for your question! You are correct that eating more vegetables is certainly a great idea! Research has found that whole grains are linked to lower chronic disease risk, specifically when eating 3 or more servings daily, which is why they are recommended as part of a healthy plant-based diet (for more information on whole grains, check out this link – https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/grains/). Also, a 2016 meta-analysis found that those eating whole grains (compared to those eating little/no whole grains) had a lower risk of total mortality, cardiovascular disease mortality, and cancer mortality. I hope this helps!

Thank you so much — will look into this further! Do you know if there is any study of whole grains vs no-grains-at-all (or no carbs)? As I said earlier, I’m sure whole grains are healthier than processed grains… but I suspect that no-grains may be healthier than whole grains… but not sure!

Ryan, what about whole grains makes you think we’d be better off?
Whole grains are some of the healthiest foods on the planet. Some people have allergies to wheat, sensitivity to gluten (which I think is neither proven nor disproven), or are celiac so some need to avoid gluten or wheat – the wheat issue may be due to modern wheat (my allergy to wheat was much more severe as a child than it is now yet I did good on spelt which is an ancient form of wheat), but there are lots of other grains apart from wheat and naturally gluten free.
However, if you personally prefer to avoid grains, I agree with you that there’s nothing wrong with replacing it with other healthy foods instead.

Please be aware that not all of us have ‘smart’ phones. I have a copy of your book and simply xeroxed the ‘daily dozen page’ which lives on my refrigerator door. Perhaps one of you fabulous staff of volunteers could prepare the content of this video, in particular, in a written form; so that we = ahem – older folks could simply print it out and place it in a prominent spot in our kitchens.

Hi everyone! I will share my default diet, for when I don’t want to think about what to eat. I divided it in 3 simple groups: 2 Smoothies + 1 Main meal + Snacks (which may accompany the other two groups).

*** Side Notes ****
– I carry a cold brewed hibiscus bottle with me.
– I may add a 200 mL of fortified soy milk with coffee if I get hungry.
– I take the following vegan supplements: B12, D3+K2 and algae based Omega-3.
– I try to keep calories relatively low as I’m trying to lose some weight.
– I use frozen versions of food when I can (e.g. blackberries, strawberries and spinach -which I microwave-) as I try to keep it simple.
– This plan was ran through cronometer.com in order to check if all nutrients were acquired, which they seem to be; some minimal adjustments may have to be applied for each person.

Hello! I would appreciate it if some of the followers of NFO help me understand this. I am following a WFPB diet for its health benefits. There are some well known websites with lots of happy followers that promote eating organic, grass fed meat, eggs, limiting grains and beans, etc. for optimum health and their reasoning sounds legitimate just like all the information that can be found here and other websites that promote WFPB diets. The followers of the aforementioned diet (with animal protein, etc.) also say that they feel great. So, how one chooses which diet to follow? Why did you choose WFPB diet? Have you tried them both and just feel better on WFPB diet? Thank you!

The most important reason for me is that the science shows that humans do not have the physiological structure to be meat-eaters, eg., teeth, jaws, digestive system etc. etc. I just cannot envision our ancient ancestors catching wild animals and ripping the raw flesh off of them and eating it. Doesn’t make any sense to me! But I can envision them picking fruit and berries to their hearts content. Sure, over the eons, humans have adapted a little to eating small amounts of meat to survive a famine, but that’s different from seeking the optimal diet for health and longevity.

Dr Greger has a study where each step toward vegan WFPB gets healthier with fewer health risks for all of the leading causes of death.

He also has a video with pictures of arteries blocking after a year and one with pictures of arteries hardening and the concept of bad gut bacteria using the carnitine from beef and the choline from eggs to grow tumors and block arteries and having those bad gut bacteria they produce a toxic byproduct.

The acidity of the animal products and the growth hormone and methionine causing Cancer to grow.

The blocking of the arteries to the brain increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s by 5 times, not to mention strokes.

Hi Julia. It’s one thing for the reasons to sound legitimate, but when it comes to people like Dr. Greger and others like him, it isn’t about convincing anyone on “their way,” it’s solely about the science and what the actual scientific evidence has to say. You don’t just hear something that sounds smart on this website or in Dr. Greger’s books, you’re actually TAUGHT and walked through the science so you can use your own mind, learn, and understand how our bodies actually work AND understand how the scientific process actually works. I highly recommend his book “How Not To Die” if you haven’t read it already.

The reason there are people out there promoting animal based diets has nothing to do with science or legitimacy, it’s really all about archaic beliefs and more often than that, agenda. One of the most powerful industries in the world is the animal agriculture industry and they’ve even long swayed the government. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but sadly it’s no theory, it’s just how corrupt our world is and has been for a long time. Michael Pollan (a famous journalist) has actually written about this to some extent.

It’s helpful to look at agendas… who sponsors the websites, tv shows, etc.? Who runs them? And so on. Even in studies you have to look at conflict of interests, checking who funded the study. This is something Dr. Greger always points out. And Dr. Greger’s website itself is completely nonprofit and the only things he sells are books which he gives a lot of the information away in his videos, articles, and in live Q&A’s and proceeds from his books go to supporting this free nonprofit website. So here you can see there is zero conflict of interest or hidden agenda.

You’re always going to hear people say they feel great. There’s many reasons for this but sometimes those reasons could be they’re not real reviews or people posting genuine experiences but rather part of an agenda itself, and then you have people who feel better because even though they’re still on a harmful diet they’ve at least improved it somewhat, and then you have people who could be 5 seconds away from a heart attack boasting about how great they feel because maybe to them they do feel great or maybe they’re just so intent on their lifestyle choice that they’re in denial. It’s really not a matter of how people we don’t know (or even do know) say they feel, it’s a matter of what’s going on inside the human body.

The reason I am whole foods plant based is first and foremost for morel and ethical reasons. What is done to the animals is nothing short of a holocaust. I used to be a vegetarian until I learned the truth about how horrific the dairy and egg industries are among other things and then became vegan. Since we have no need to consume or use animals or their parts, it is therefore unethical to do so. For some collected insight into what the animal agriculture industry as a whole looks like, I highly recommend watching the documentary Earthlings, but be prepared when you do.

Since deciding to go vegan, I learned the truth about human anatomy and our natural biology which is that of frugivorous herbivores. So I became much more aware of health and can honestly say that even if I literally cared about no one but my immediate self, I would be completely plant based for me alone because the science says that is the best thing for my entire body and even mind and even appearance (which goes hand in hand with overall health).

Moreover, the animal agriculture industry is the most detrimental thing to the planet. For more information on that, I highly recommend the documentary “Cowspiracy” which gives some insight but there’s even more to it just like there’s even more to the horrors that go on to the animals than seen in “Earthlings.”

So I’m vegan for the animals and planet and WFPB for myself. Although really all life, including human life is immediately affected by animal agriculture… Water and crops are used up for “livestock” that could be used to feed starving humans. Most of the time these resources are taken from third world countries where people are starving. Also, while palm oil is one of the biggest causes for deforestation and should be completely boycotted (t’s so unhealthy anyway), globally, animal agriculture is the leading cause for deforestation. Not only does this deforestation drastically impact wildlife and all life on the planet due to its devastating damage to the planet, it also directly impacts native peoples. So I guess I’m also vegan for humans as well.

After going from vegetarian to vegan (and at first I ate a lot of junk food and refined foods when becoming vegan) I wasn’t aware that I was making such a healthy change, so I was so surprised at the IMMEDIATE difference in my health. Within the first week, I was no longer congested which was a CONSTANT thing for me which sucked because I’m a singer. And I was always experiencing bloating, that too went away. I couldn’t believe all the changes. And that was just from giving up dairy and eggs.
I then became more aware of health and nutrition and starting eating a more whole foods plant based diet as opposed to refined plant foods and even junk foods made from plants. I have Dr. Greger to thank for helping me learn about the optimal way to eat because I heard a lot of crazy things out there… Since applying these things, I can honestly say that I’ve experienced drastic changes in my health that I can’t even begin to write about. I’ve never felt so healthy and I stopped getting sick. My appearance is better too, I didn’t have a problem with my skin and hair before but even so, they’ve gotten so much better since going WFPB. I DID have a problem with my nails though! They were so thin that you could bend them! And I often had issues with them peeling. Nails are thicker now and never peel anymore. I had so many internal improvements as well that I can’t even begin to get into so I’m just laying out some of the quicker, simpler experiences I had, like that I had a cavity heal itself and I used to get head aches frequently, like most other people, and I no longer get head aches, ever.
My experience has been amazing physically, mentally, and even spiritually. Everyone is different and I’m not saying if you go WFPB you’ll never get a cold again, but these things have been some of my personal experiences. I’m not as strict as some people on a WFPB diet in that I’m not salt free, just drastically lowered my salt intake, I’m not oil free 100% of the time but it too has been drastically reduced. I don’t measure what percentage of fat I have… if it’s from whole plant foods, I do not care. I just eat until I’m full.

At least if you try a plant based diet as opposed to paleo, etc., you won’t be harming yourself for trying it out whereas other suggestions like “eat more animal fats” can be incredibly harmful and even deadly.

Do they ever provide any actual evidence of health benefits though? Testimonials are pretty worthless since you can find testimonials for pretty much anything inckuding breathariansism and drinking one’s own urine. And drinking camel urine for that matter.

And do they even mention things like the studies showing increased cancer rates with increased consumption of grass-fed beef? Or the increased mortality swown in studies with people eating animal foods. Grass-fed, organic meats and eggs may well be less unhealthy than conventionally fed meat, eggs etc (not that there’s any hard eveidence that I have seen) but “less unhealthy” does not necessarily mean “healthy”. Going grass fed and organic is just tinkering with a very real problemThis confusion between the meaning of “less unhealthy” and “healthy” seems to be the actual foundation of their beliefs. Personally, I think they are simply engaging in wishful thinking and self delusion.

If there was any actual evidence for these beliefs, it would be recognised by health authories and scientific bodies. But there isn’t. The scientific evidence is pretty conclusive that we should all be eating more vegetables, fruits and whole grains. That’s what all credible health authorities say.

Sure, if you want to eat a whole food plant based diet that includes say less than 10% of total calories from animal foods like most of the Blue Zone popualtions, then make sure it’s all grass-fed and organic. However eating significant quantuties of these things is likely to increase risk of eg CVD and cancer.

So, Tom, I guess we should disregard your personal testimony on how a whole plant food diet improved your health. After all, it’s just your opinion. Maybe your improvement of health was just a fluke like spontaneous regression. Maybe it was the power of the mind, as in placebo effect….No, that can’t be…you don’t believe in anything “supernatural”. I can just see you know with a group of 100 people who are talking about how amla improved their health, and 98 of the 100 report good results from taking Amla, and you chime in….”No, no, no….I can’t except your testimonial…I want a million dollar laboratory investigation full of PhD scientists running around in white lab coats.”

You even call people who have timely recorded their blood pressures, cholesterol levels, A1C levels, glucose levels, strength gains, and weight losses showing positive gains to be a testimony. Hey…go get a life will you.

Yes Bill disregard my personal testimony and even regard the results of scientific studies with caution. We need to apply critical thinking skills to claims about diet and health. That includes your own opinions about persoanl testimonials apprently proving the vaidity of the paleo diet

Paleo diets are fine to the extent that they take people off processed food, dairy foods and get them eating more plant foods. That has got to be an improvment on the standard Western diet high in refined carbs and other junk foods. It is probably also considerably superior to “vegan” junk food diets high in beer and chips, white bread, mock meats and the rest. There is no surprise there. Any diet that that moves people more in the dietary directions indicated by the WHO recommendations. the scientific report of the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and the expert scientific report of the World Cancer Research Fund is likely to deliver benefits. Especially when accompanied by exercise and weight loss. These alone will deliver benefits in biomarkers. For example, the professor who went on the Twinkie Diet lost weight and his biomarkers improved. Does this prove that the Twinkie Diet is healthy?

The fact is that every diet being promoted on the web is usually accompanied by multple personal testimonies. Are they all correct – or are only Paleo Diet testimonials correct?

By and large though Paleo Diets are simply a rationalisation for eating large amounts of unhealthy foods like meat and eggs. And contain bizarre arguments for avoiding whole grains and legumes which the evidence shows deliver benefits to health. These diets may be less unhealthy than the SAD but doesn’t prove that they are healthy. It is also telling that no credible health authority anywhere in the world recommends them.

Critical thinking allows us to analyse the problems with relying on testimonials to assess the validity of fad diets and dubious stem cell clinics run by health entrepeneurs. Perhaps you should try it?

Julia – the question you asked is a big topic and has much discussion around it. There is no doubt in my mind that people lose weight on a high meat low processed carb diet. The equally important topic to consider is whether or not this diet will sustain one’s health over the long haul and into your elder years.Let me suggest that you pick up a copy of the work of Valter Longo, Ph.D. He is the head of the Gerontology Dept at U of Calif-Davis. He has been studying nutritional longevity for 30 years and has just this year written a book about his findings. To give you a sneak preview, he recommends a WFPB diet with small amounts of fish (if one wanted) and no animal products otherwise except in certain situations. His research shows that this is the diet that supports the greatest health over the greatest period of time. He also advocates adding fasting to one’s lifestyle and he has specific information regarding that added component.
His research also deals with various diseases, cancer, and other ills of our times.
But the best thing to do, I think, is to get his book and read through it. I think his information will help you find your own answer. His book is The Longevity Diet, Valter Longo, Ph.D. This book is written for the lay person. You won’t be disappointed.

Dr Greger may have mentioned CLA. You may weelbe right on that particular point although I can’t remeber where and when now.

However, I have my doubts about CLA and most foods high in CLA are in any case unhealthy overall. .

CLA are basically trans fats and they are found primarily in meats and dairy products. Consequently, they are publicised by the dairy and meat industries and researchers linked to them (and of course the saturated fat. low carb etc crowd). On the other hand, I can’t recall credible health authorities like the WHO, US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee or Harvard saying we should eat foods high in CLA. In fact they usually tell us to limit or avoid meat and dairy.

CLA may have sometimes been shown to have benefits on particular biomarkers or for weight loss. However,

“Among conjugated TFAs, two major isomers of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), cis-9,trans-11 and trans-10,cis-12, show distinctive biological activities. A number of clinical trials of CLA with effects on body composition have been reported, but effects on coronary heart disease risk factors have been inconsistent.
Meanwhile, safety concerns regarding CLA, in particular isomer specificity, have also been raised.”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889157509000210

Animal studies in rats and chickens have suggested adverse effects if I recall correctly.

As far as I know, all the hoopla about CLA comes from the dairy and meat industries and people who are trying desperately to convince themselves that eating meat etc is actually healthy. The scientific evidence doesn’t support those extravagant claims and even contains suggestions of possible adverse effects.

I’m looking for evidence-based nutritional information. I was surprised to see flax seeds and turmeric on the daily dozen. Even reviewing the NutritionFacts.org videos and Daily Dozen app info blog on these topics, I didn’t find any good prospective studies confirming the hypotheses that these foods are beneficial. There’s lots of “may” and “appears to” words, without any “has been shown to” improve human outcomes in RCCT’s. Mixing good evidence-based recommendations with the promotion of unnatural nutritional supplements (taken in teaspoons and tablespoons) gets dangerously close to the nutritional supplement craze I work so hard to fight against in my patients. We need to stick with the science, and to promoting whole-food plant based diets – real food – and not supplements.

Yes, we do have good evidence for iodine supplementation, although most Americans get so much (iodinized) salt that it’s not something to worry about. Unless – you avoid all processed foods, dairy, fish, and the only salt you use is sea salt. (A friend did this, having bought into the industry hype that somehow sea salt is healthier or more natural, and did become iodine deficient). We also have evidence for supplementation of Vit D in the elderly (and hopefully more researched-backed recommendations for Vit D in the near future ans some big trials near completion). So I’m not against all supplements – I just want good evidence behind them. (And to address the earlier comment, if you have to take a teaspoon or tablespoon of an additive to your food, to me that’s a supplement and not “natural”.)

Yes, it’s a good question jj. Many of us on this forum do indeed eat a whole foods diet with no salt ( no sea salt or otherwise ) oil or sugar added, no processed foods. With family history of Hashimoto’s it is hard to know what to do.

Kelp is a natural veggie which normally contains iodine. And it can be taken as a supplement in compressed pill form. A tiny tiny pill will provide in excess of 100% RDA of iodine. I don’t like the taste of kelp so will take those pills. One a couple of times a week.
Kelp does not have seemingly the overt presence of contaminants that other sea weeds may. Some should really not be consumed at all. One may probably care to source from the north atlantic as opposed to pacific.
But if one likes the taste or is not against taking a small pill, it could provide iodine. Before the advent of things like iodized salt and widespread availability of seafood iodine deficiency was a very real problem. Some select mountainous areas far from any coasts had significant populations with presence of goiter due to iodine deficiency.

what’s your daily food regimen look like? Meals, snacks? Supplements?Thanks for sharing. You mentioned in
later post that you hike high peaks, and body surf. Very active. Wondering how you eat while in
this active lifestyle.

Coffee, chocolate, coconut oil, any things like that in your diet as well?

I do take in a smoothie every morning consisting of loads of green leafy veggies, berries diluted in some flax milk and with flax as well and a bit of soy protein and turmeric and pepper with a dash of oil, it helps to metabolize some antioxidents. If hungry in the morning still I will have a vegan type burrito of some sort, tofu or beans or potatoes or something.

The rest of my meals are more of the higher protein kind. Tofu in a stir fry with veggies and leafy stuff is a favorite. I am crazy about burritos and make them with mostly beans of some sort and put hot chili and fake meat in them. My snacks are goji berries hummus as a dip and if real hungry for something a bowl of cereal or oatmeal with various nuts thrown in. I try to have a salad with my dinner meal but with nuts always put in. I use hemp oil and vinegar as the dressing.

As for supplements I guess I consume 4000 plus calories a day, so my requirements, requirements are based upon caloric intake usually around 2000 is the normal, are above the norm.
Most important to my opinion is the protein requirements of a very active lifestyle to provide satiation, rather than fat.

However my personal opinion is that our immune system is comprised a bit from cholesterol like substances. Those on excessive satins often express with compromised immune systems. So I consume with health benefit intention and as I like it…vegan no sugar dark chocolate every day. A little bit of a bar finishing one off in about three days. This satisfies the saturated fat component of the diet, which most here would consider a strict no no. But on occasion I do eat a whole bar in a night.
I add a little bit of oil in cooking, olive or hemp but not much and with burritos or no meat pizza none at all. I eat bread(the whole grain kind with nuts and stuff, in fake meat sandwiches fairly often. Coconut oil seems not necessary.

I was exposed to probably toxic levels of chlordane as a toddler due to my poor dads good intention to get rid of carpet beetles by soaking all the carpeting with the stuff. A practice he continued in like kind, for his whole life even when it was banned. My mother had a abhorance of any insects due to a incident as a child and a swarming bee hive. So until I moved out at times in my mid teen years, I was almost bathed in the stuff..
So my immune system was compromised. My mother came down with thyroid and breast cancer which are both related to chlordane exposure.

As a consequence I have researched a bit and take a small dose of 7 keto as it helps older peoples with immune response to immunizations by study..I for instance could never develop a immune response to hep b immunization despite repeated tries, though even then being young.It was a occupational hazard.The study references 200mg taken twice a day. I take 25 mg twice a day.
It is like DHEA but without the androgenic effects and is available over the counter as a supplement.

I also take ashwagandha 60 mg twice a day for the same purpose.
Creatine for vegans helps cognition and strength appreciably. But one must source creatine from a german manufacturer type as most all others are contaminated by various things.
And I am crazy about hibiscus tea and roobis teas. I use them combined. And also as the water substitute to make coffee in the morning.I do take calcium occasionally at a dose probably of 25% RDA at my caloric intake, and my fake milks are calcium fortified usually at the 30% range which means 15% for me.

I usually take a teaspoon of dried amla with the creatine about mid day. My feeling is spreading out antioxidents is necessary when one is vary active and consuming as consequence lots of oxygen.
Brocclie sprouts as well when available I throw them in salads and on sandwiches. I am trying to do arugula or red beets for the benefit of cardio boost during exercise daily.

I am exposed due to caring for kids to colds flu and such continually each year in the winter spring and fall.
And even though I have that history of a compromised immune system I no longer have any problems and have not been sick in any manner even the slightest for several years. No meds no signifcant medical history except as mentioned.
I really looked into the immune system several years back when I had to be hospitalized due to flu. By some stats 25% of those admitted for flu die. So I had to prevent that. But always prior I had big big problems with any exposure and consequent illness. They would go on for months.

So my history is not yours. Probably you do not need 7 keto nor ashwaganda. 7 keto has some reputation for use as a weight loss supplement so I suspect it has even at this low dose perhaps some muscle retention quality.
Protein calcium a bit of saturated fat creatine I consider necessary for my extreme type lifestyle. I am not gardening for exercise. Today following some painting of a fence I will probably lift for 2 hours or so and finish up with a one mile jog for dogs benefit.
Tomorrow a around a hour jog hit kick the bag probably….I love it so…the moving the being alive thing. Backpacking no snow this year at altitude I will start early and literally can not wait….;) I live by forest but it is not enough.
I do not want to live to be a hundred. I want to live till I die. Never say never but so far I am succeeding when almost all my age are not. I saw one today someone I knew same age…so sad he is like a child. He did not recognize me, but I did him.
Despite obstacles…the meat dairy fish is now I realize when once I did this only for less harm…it is my cause. 6 feet 190 I balance strength for endurance and speed. Want more or the other I slip a bit to either side. Very strong I wanted that at times I weighted around 220. Very fast and filled with endurance I wanted that once I was 160. So I choose.

So I stumbled here health wise. To this place.I can die at any moment, I live. No glasses no nothing…..if only I could take them by the hand and show them. Some may care for this life. Others may want a hundred years I suppose. I really think that thing diet puts them in a fog. Look at their politic and the harm they cause.
I will not hide my story. It is not a brag, peoples need to know this can happen.With some attention and a real reason which for me is compassionate intention. Always I think of straying from caring… that brings me back. Surprised I was that it was healthy when I found that out ;)

And to add….vit b-12 sublingual 100mcg once maybe twice if I intend to lift heavy.. vit D 5000 during months with no sun exposure, 2000 otherwise. and vegan EPA-DHA for cognitive retention.
Vegan hyaluronic acid and glucosamine for joints. Occasionally schizandra and or billberry for eye health and vision.
Vegan Vit K I take now as well. Seems like a lot but I’d say about most of it is the performance thing not a live long thing.

I do have a exception to lanolin derived as opposed to vegan vit D. Lanolin derived vit D is from sheeps wool. I have relatives who sheer sheep at times and the sheep are not treated badly at all, it is like a hair cut. Not as PETA describes it. Sheep are not generally factory farmed. So I find no harm in it. Honey I do not eat but would regardless If it was healthy. Commercial bee keeping is less harmful to bees by my read than wild kept bees.. And we need more bees but I don’t like it, unhealthy.
I use a erytheriol based l sweetener with some stevia in it. Other sweeteners I eat at times but they are unhealthy.
Love chips, Healthy kind organic not to much salt, but some fat..I avoid any added sugar and seek out low sugar forms of ketchup and tomato sauces and things like that.Eating now chips and black bean hummus yum yum. Processed…yeah I know. Tastes great.

Hi,
I’ve been following the Daily Dozen now for a few weeks and never felt so great. I have a few questions though on more processed foods. I know Dr. Greger says we can eat things like whole wheat pasta and tortillas, but I know these are more processed than grains like quinoa, oats, barley, etc. Does this mean that there are less health benefits? I haven’t eaten pasta or tortilla(the most processed grain I have is sprouted flax bread) in a while, so should I continue this, or should I go for the pasta? If so, is bean pasta a grain, or what other type of pasta should I eat. Same with tortillas- are corn or whole wheat better. With so many different options out there these days, I get confused on what to buy. Also, is sprouted pasta better? What brands does Dr. Greger recommend? He should do a What I Buy/Favorites video.

This site does not usually recommend specific brands Asher. However I can give you some comments on your questions, although it sounds like you’re gaining a good handle on healthy eating and glad you are feeling so predictably well eating this way. Yes, you have the right idea about less health benefits with more processing, but you can use balance to occasionally add some less processed foods to your diet. Tortillas, corn or whole wheat varieties are fine occasionally if you are going to load them up with wonderly nutrient-dense foods. Yes, sprouted pasta is healthier than non-sprouted and a bean pasta (if made primarily from beans-check label!) would be healthier than refined flour pasta. AGain, if you add lots of veggies to your healthy marinara sauce over that pasta–enjoy guilt free.
Hope this helps put things in perspective. You’re right there are many different options these days and while the marketers like to put a few healthy words on the packages that are far from whole foods, with careful buying you can still find lots of wfpb options to indulge in!

Interesting that Dr G specifically refers to hot cereal. I usually have my oats muesli-style with 5 minutes soak in soya milk (along with my own mix of bran, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, etc) .
Has anyone found research comparing the nutritional values of raw oats (quick soak) with overnight soaked with boiled oats? Googling just gives the usual levels of anecdotes and mis-information.
One difficulty seems to be comparing 100g raw with 100g soaked/cooked, where of course the cooked oats have absorbed plenty water.
I’d also like to know the nutritional value of the finer quick cook oats in comparison to the larger whole grain.
Thanks in advance for any pointers. :-)

However, quick cooking oats are also whole grain and there is little nutritional difference between these and old-fashioned rolled oats. The difference between rolled oats, quick cooking oats and instant oats is basically how much they have been processed. The instant oats are chopped up pretty finely for quicker cooking, The quck oats aren’t cut up quite so small etc.

However, you will likely find that the nutrients and calories in instant oats are more digestible than those in rolled oats. The reduced surface area speeds up digestion. This is a two-edged sword though. Instant oats have a higher glycaemic index than quick or instant oats. Also, dietary fibre size my have an effect on intestinal transit time for digested food
“Dietary fiber: the effect of hparticle size of wheat bran on colonic function in young adult men” AJCN August 1980

To be honest, when I am lazy I just pour boiling water over my rolled oats, let them soak for 5 minutes and then eat. However, this can cause intestinal distress in some people. Other methods I have seen, include soaking overnight and then eating them cold. Consequently, i don’t fuss too much about cooking time – 10 minutes usually works for me with rolled oats although most advice says 20 minutes I think

This makes me question the safety of my soy milk fortified, like most soy milk in shops, with calcium. Is it safe? It is after all a supplement of calcium. Should we look for brands with no added calcium if they exist?What about all the other calcium fortified food?

LDEG, West Soy is both organic and completely unfortified. The only ingredient apart from water is organic whole soy beans. This is my go to when I need soy milk for a recipe.
I also worry and wonder about calcium fortification due to the dangerous impact calcium supplements can have on arterial function. I’m sure in a serving of fortified food, there isn’t as much calcium as supplements, however not only are some extremely high per serving, but many of us exceed or even far exceed the serving size in one sitting.
I find it completely unnecessary as well since plant foods are already so abundant in calcium and we need less than what was previously thought (depending on person I’m sure).
Anyways, I avoid fortified foods in general but calcium is especially concerning to me.

I avoid supplement and I don’t really buy much processed food, mainly tofu, tempeh, tomato paste I never really analysed the question of calcium in the shop bought soy milk I use for my coffee or the one served in cafés. Somehow, in my mind, I didn’t associate it with being a supplement
I guess I will have to look harder for calcium free soy milk. I am in Australia and I have never seen the brand West soy, but thank you for mentioning it.

If the issue of calcium fortified soy milk was raised in one of the videos, I missed it.

LDEG, I don’t believe Dr. Greger mentions fortified foods with calcium in his videos, I was just sharing my personal concerns on the matter based on the information about calcium supplements in general. I mentioned West Soy because you had said you weren’t able to find an unfortified soy milk. I have no idea if you can only get it within the U.S.

Just a quick read shows this. a partial quote….“Design Participants with one or more adenoma at baseline were randomised to receive 1200 mg/day of elemental calcium, 1000 IU/day of vitamin D3, both or neither agent. Treatment continued for 3 or 5 years, when risk of polyps was determined from surveillance colonoscopy (treatment phase).

Conclusion In a large multicentre chemoprevention study, we found evidence that calcium and vitamin D supplementation increased the risk of SSA/Ps. This appeared to be a late effect: 6–10 years after supplementation began. ”
So it appears on the surface at least the treatment stopped either 3 or 5 years and the late effect was a determination on a 6-10 year time frame.
No such determination was found in the earlier time frame.

So did the people in question continue to supplement?
If they did not continue to supplement is this then a read on cessation of supplementation of these items not on the items themselves?
And perhaps more importantly what was the source materials for the supplements. Calcium in particular is known to have contamination issues from variously sourced options. Lead and such have been found to be widespread in calcium sourced from dolomite what was the origin of the calcium source in this test?

So I think first we need to answer these questions.
Then this needs to be compared to any study which may show a contradictory effect than that produced here.

Just my guess…. but I think it would be helpful in any event to know calcium and vit D levels in the body as opposed to just a supplement taken. As variance of assimilation may be present.
Certain foods eaten for instance decrease calcium assimilation.

The NIH provides a good primer on calcium and supplements of calcium to include different factors which affect assimilation.
Really just providing a supplement does not cover a lot of ground in a specific of calcium in study….were any of these involved also taking antacids?
Any spinach eaters out there in this group and on and on….

In reading the study it appears by my take the continuance beyond the initial period of study was voluntary as per this quote..”Treatment was to be continued until the first surveillance colonoscopy anticipated at 3 or 5 years (treatment period). Data collection continued after this colonoscopy for participants who consented to additional follow-up (observational period) (figure 1); however, subjects who did not have an End of Treatment colonoscopy were not included in observational analyses.”

Were those who then participated(voluntarily) in some manner perhaps knowing of a potential problem by some self observational means?

Here is a quote from the NIH on the relevance of calcium to these forms of cancer. It is published in 2017 and thus prior to this latest study. But its opinion is also not versed on the result of one singular as well.
” Cancer of the colon and rectum
Data from observational and experimental studies on the potential role of calcium in preventing colorectal cancer, though somewhat inconsistent, are highly suggestive of a protective effect [1]. Several studies have found that higher intakes of calcium from foods (low-fat dairy sources) and/or supplements are associated with a decreased risk of colon cancer [59-62]. In a follow-up study to the Calcium Polyp Prevention Study, supplementation with calcium carbonate led to reductions in the risk of adenoma (a nonmalignant tumor) in the colon, a precursor to cancer [63,64], even as long as 5 years after the subjects stopped taking the supplement [65]. In two large prospective epidemiological trials, men and women who consumed 700–800 mg per day of calcium had a 40%–50% lower risk of developing left-side colon cancer [66]. But other observational studies have found the associations to be inconclusive [62,67,68].
In the Women’s Health Initiative, a clinical trial involving 36,282 postmenopausal women, daily supplementation with 1,000 mg of calcium and 400 International Units (IU) of vitamin D3 for 7 years produced no significant differences in the risk of invasive colorectal cancer compared to placebo [69]. The authors of a Cochrane systematic review concluded that calcium supplementation might moderately help prevent colorectal adenomas, but there is not enough evidence to recommend routine use of calcium supplements to prevent colorectal cancer [70]. Given the long latency period for colon cancer development, long-term studies are needed to fully understand whether calcium intakes affect colorectal cancer risk.“

I personally don’t think it’s safe to supplement with calcium and find it very easy to get from food. If someone were concerned they weren’t getting enough, they could always get their blood levels checked. I’m sure supplementing with vitamin d helps, I supplement with 5000 IU from lichen.

I do however hold bias..I think the notion one could be driven into a life of inevitable cancer of the lower gi tract or a heart attack by simply drinking a cup or so of calcium fortified soy milk a absurd proposition.

A gallon or so I would however agree. Most things in diet to my opinion are(morality excluded) a question of excess or not.
Peoples do on occasion die from complications from bone fracture as well.Those who do not eat quite so perfectly and are vegan may perhaps be assisted by that small amount of calcium in their soy milk.I

Thank you Dr. Ben, for your prompt reply, which however raises more questions.

In many videos, Dr. Greger talks about the benefit of drinking soy milk ” Patients with breast cancer can be assured that enjoying a soy latte or indulging in pad thai with tofu causes no harm, and, when consumed in plentiful amounts, may reduce [the] risk of disease recurrence.”” from this video https://nutritionfacts.org/video/breast-cancer-survival-and-soy/ and in many others in which he recommends to women with a genetic mutation that puts them at risk of breast cancer to have some soy milk. And he mentions soy milk as one of the sources for soy. Or in the equal producer video, (../… But, just two weeks of drinking three glasses of soy milk a day was able to convert three of six women into producers. …/…) .

The new USDA guidelines include soymilk, which may be good because drinking soymilk has been associated with weight loss, relieving constipation, reducing cancer risk (including breast cancer, see also here), and preventing COPD. Soymilk has 75% more antioxidants than cow’s milk (sample breakfast here), and contains phytoestrogens that have a number of health-promoting effects. Girls who drink soymilk as opposed to cow’s milk develop at a more normal age, beginning puberty 8 months later on average. Also, drinking soymilk with spices, such as curcumin, may especially beneficial. Check out chocolate pudding and milkshake recipes here. Soymilk is also a good source of calcium, but it may block the benefits of tea. Also, make sure to shake it well before pouring. Finally, soymilk made with kombu may contain too much iodine and should be reformulated. Sticking to 3-5 servings of soy a day is considered beneficial, while drinking a day may prevent the decline in IGF-1 levels one would ordinarily expect on a plant-based diet.
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So no warning at all on soy milk, we are given the impression it is safe and beneficial Should this recommendation now be revised? And it is not only for soy milk, but for any fortified milk, almond, rice, oats, coconut ….. not that I drink them but the reasoning is the same.

I don’t drink soy milk for its calcium content, but because I like it in my coffee. I get my calcium from almonds, kale, etc….. but I do eat tofu and tempeh. Are you suggesting that we should avoid them because they are processed food? There are several recipes with tempeh in The How not to die cookbook.

I completely understand what you’re saying and you have valid points. We’ll just have to wait to see if Dr. G modifies his recommendations. In the mean time, I personally avoid processed foods like soy milk and tofu as I outlined.

I am so frustrated. Sometimes the volume of Dr Greger’s videos is perfect and I can hear him speak; but sometimes the volume is so low I almost can’t hear him at all as in today’s daily dozen. I wish the volume would be consistently adequate so if anything, I need to turn it down.

Thanks for your comment– matching my own views, almost verbatim. Without having found your post, first, I made a suggestion of my own (below), which closely parallels yours.

The problem is not only Dr. Greger’s often rapid, even slurred delivery, as he crowds so much information into a video, but the audio level variation between videos. With 2,000 videos, we sometimes encounter real surprises in sound level.

Yet, because of the time involved in re-viewing and re-editing each video for audio level, it is not likely each of them can be re-set to a standard volume in this lifetime. We must provide suggestions for the problem as it appears, as you and I have attempted– if the sound is too loud, or not loud enough, we need to say so in a good-natured, helpful way. To their credit, Dr. Greger and his coding associate usually can deal with the problem.

Many, if not most of us, have adequate (if not excellent) auditory range, and are sensitive to even the softest sounds. We do not play music loud, but at a very moderate volume, only enough to bring out the fullness of an orchestral sound, but not at rock concert volume. So, when Dr. Greger perambulates on the podium at his public presentations– away from his hi-gain microphone pickup– his audio level drops drastically, and we must twist the volume up rapidly, or else replay the segment obscured. But that problem should not occur in a captive space, such as a desk or recording booth.

The best answer, of course, is always to use a professional quality, shirt-collar-positioned microphone, which usually eliminates the “podium effect”– and the variation in volume from video to video, as well. Dr. Greger may do this already, since he has made his share of studio interviews, and has watched the studio sound man adjust volume on the set for best quality.

I have a lot of friends who are into this paleo diet. I also have friends who are vegan. But, all of my paleo diet friends have scientific evidence that it is helping them. They can show you their recorded weight loss. They can show you graphs of their blood pressure coming down to normal limits. They can show you their blood work where cholesterol and triglyceride levels have come down to normal limits. Don’t give me this crap about testimonies don’t count. These are not people just blowing hot air out of their mouths BUT INSTEAD they have NUMBERS backing up their claims. Every-time someone brings this up on this forum, everyone chimes in..”oh my…that’s just anecdotal….and we all know that anecdotal is meaningless….oh my oh my…..So don’t give me this anecdotal crap….I want a scientific answer why these people are getting GOOD NUMBERS. And, they have diaries where they rate their daily energy levels. I know this part is subjective but that is what a lot of scientific research that Dr. Greger throws at us everyday which is research QUESTIONNAIRES such as the Nurses New England Study from many years back. These people are charting increased energy level. I’ve been a vegan for 3 years now and I have DECREASED ENERGY LEVELS.

If they are giving up refined carbohydrates and other junk foods, eating more green vegetables and losing weight, of course their numbers will improve. And engaging in exercise programmes as part of their diet will help too.

Anybody moving from a bad diet to a merely poor diet will likely experience benefits. That doesn’t prove it is a good diet still less the optimal diet.

And you may not like but persoanl testimonials are a poor form of evidence. I have already shown you multiple testimonals for the allegede benefits of drinking one’s own urine. if you believe that testimonials are good evidence, then you know what you have to do.

If you want scientific evidence then why not actually look at the scientific evidence? This is what Dr G’s videos are all about, it is what the expert scientific reports of the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the WHO expert scientific panel reports and the World Cancer Research Fund expert reports are all about.

In any case, eating a so-called “vegan” diet isn’t necessarily healthy. Dr Greger has been pointing this out for many years. We have to eat whole foods plant based diet.

Bill, I agree with TGs comments. There is no science I’m aware of which suggests a paleo style diet is optimal for healthy longevity. It probably does help with weight loss, which in turn lowers cholesterol a bit near term (but any calorie restricted diet will have this effect).

But science aside, I sympathize with your sentiment about anecdotal numerical results thrown around. My paleo friends do that too. However, in my experience the paleo numbers are not that impressive at all, and nothing like what is possible on WFPB (I also noticed you didn’t define what “normal” Cholesterol and BP means for your friends nor did you share any specific numbers).

So in the interest of providing more specific anecdotes, here are my numbers: 48 year old male, I have been WFPB for 5 years. Weight: 185lbs, down from about 230 (I’m 6’2”). Total Cholesterol: 128, LDL 65 (it has been at this level for 4+ years), down from 220. Blood pressure is 110/70, down from 140/90. Resting heart rate is 50 (sometimes lower), down from 70+.

As for energy, I have more than ever. I swim 1-2 miles most mornings, and run or lift weights in the evenings. Most weekends I either run 10-15 miles and/or bike 40-60. My performance and, importantly, recovery times are better than when I was in my 20’s. I’m pain free despite long hours at my desk job.

I couldn’t imagine eating any other way, and I believe I owe dr G decades of healthy living and quality of life… which is one reason I’m a proud supporter of NF.org.

Bill-
I am wondering how long these people have been on a paleo diet, and exactly what kind of paleo diet they are eating. I’m also wondering if you mean a paleo/ketogenic diet (high animal protein and animal fat). In any event, it would likely take quite a few years for the health-damaging effects of a Paleo’/ketogenic diet to become apparent. I doubt there is much evidence regarding hard endpoints for Paleo/keto diets (death, cancer, heart attacks), but caveat emptor – the scientific evidence on what broadly constitutes a healthful diet is against them (eat whole foods, mostly plants).

Bill, Dr. Greger has given studies where every step of progression toward vegan is better.

I have friends who have gone Paleo and Keto, and they WILL lose weight. The question is: Does having animal products increase their intake of growth hormone increase their risk for Cancer? Do the animal products still have viruses and bad bacteria, which cause Cancer? Does the saturated fats in animal products increase the risks of strokes, heart attacks, hardening of the arteries, Alzheimer’s, etc.

Tom is right. The biggest advantage of Paleo is that they get rid of the toxins and sugars and refined carbs and increase the plant products. WFPB does the same thing, but at a higher level.

The cholesterol thing is something I ponder, because with Atkins, cholesterol improved for a while, then went bad. I can’t remember how. It is on the truth about Atkins website, but the initial “good cholesterol” numbers suddenly rebounded and people can go to the doctor one year, and have excellent numbers, but not know that they are ruining their flow mediation dilation and things like that.

Tom is more scientific and I am not 100% sure I am even using the proper words, but one of the images was of people in a study, who started off vegetarian, were supposed to transition to vegan, but ten of them jumped to Keto instead and they had before and after images and those people hurt their arteries by 51% in one year.

I was looking at the data for “good cholesterol” tonight and they were talking about sometimes “good cholesterol” goes bad.

It isn’t as simple as they thought.

I have a group of friends who went Keto who are celebrating, because their cholesterol dropped and I am going to tell you, that I don’t know the difference between Keto and Atkins, but the “false sense of security” from the cholesterol numbers was what Dr. Greger pointed out on the Truth About Atkins site.

Yes, people lose weight with Paleo and Keto and Vegan.
Yes, people have their cholesterol numbers in tests improve with all of them.
Vegan actually unblocks arteries.

To add to the many comments Bill..
I have been mainly vegan since 1990. Have completed the pikes peak half marathon, the going up part 4 times. I have deadlifted 460 pounds, 425 for three. I consider backpacking in the wilderness at excess of 10.000 feet my main recreational hobby. That with at least a 45 pound pack. Spending for about ten years time a month and a half in the wilderness in that pursuit. Body surfing my second favorite but that rare.

I jogged about 4 miles yesterday up and down hills at 7200 plus feet with three pick em ups of 20 second or so duration added in, followed by three sprints after all was said and done. Today I jogged one mile, hit the heavy bag for about four rounds time(120 strikes each) and kicked the bag and a nearby tree for about three rounds time(60 or so each). In between breaking some concrete and working on my car. Three days ago I did two plus hours of lifting….

I supplement a bit with herbs and this and that but all vegan.
I know you will say perhaps this is all BS. But I can only say to that come here and I will show you. To add the best part for last…I am now old.
I diversified from power lifting to striking a bit ago but still do partial squats from the down position at 365 for three last leg workout..I no longer compete at mountain running given that up years ago but all this as vegan.

I do jog very slow however and pack slow as well. I simply do not find others at my age doing this. One thing or another perhaps not all and not with all the rest.
I can only suggest you have not studied diet. I can give you the specifics on this diet thing but probably you have a opinion and do not want that.
Good luck…. hope your paleo friends are doing this when they are old though I know they nor you will not.

I believe your personal testimony. You are very strong and have great endurance and I believe it is due to your diet, exercise, and positive mental attitude. I do not believe it is simply anecdotal and should be discarded, but your testimony adds to the thousands of people who have changed their diet and exercise to the goal of attaining health and strength. Most of us on this forum accept your testimony as true and valid and welcome it as good advice.

I have been eating WFPB for almost 3 years now and my hair has thinned significantly. I used to have beautiful curls but not anymore, my hair has gone fussy, dry at the ends and thin. It is not falling out more than usual, just the thining. I’m frustrated, any advice?

I found this on jack Norris’ website
]
“Summary: Occasionally, women who become vegetarian or vegan report experiencing hair loss. If there is a dietary cause, the most likely are rapid weight loss, thyroid problems, or iron deficiency. Zinc deficiency and not getting enough of the amino acid lysine could also be culprits.

According to Mayo Clinic, an overactive or underactive thyroid gland can lead to hair loss. Upon going vegetarian or vegan, people might increase their soy intake. Soy can affect the thyroid, especially when iodine levels are not adequate or someone is predisposed to thyroid problems. Making sure you get enough iodine, by taking 75 to 150 µg per day from a supplement, should prevent any hair loss problems that could be due to iodine or soy. If you are predisposed to thyroid problems, limiting soy might also help.”http://jacknorrisrd.com/category/iodine/

Hey guys 2 quick questions? Is it okay for this diet to be modified? For example: it’s tough sometimes to get the right amount of fat in my diet, and it is just easier to eat another serving of nuts rather than cracking an avacado open. Are two servings of nuts okay per day (I know they are high in calories). Thanks!!

Hey guys a couple quick questions. Is it okay for this diet to be modified? For example: Sometimes I eat 2 servings of nuts instead of 1 because it’s easier to get the fat rather than opening another avacado. Is it healthy to have two servings of nuts per day? (I know they are high in calories but I workout everyday)

Dr. Greger likes special effects, such as a video inset of his head and shoulders, moving along as he walks at his stationary desk. Unfortunately, that did not go over with everybody, and he is to be commended for his return to standard fare presentations, in deference to his audience

And now, a new experiment– even to the point of using a BING, followed by multiple, other BING sounds, to simulate checking a checklist. And, frankly, a BING is a good idea.

However, a problem occurs when Greger’s own breathless, rapid-fire, even slightly blurred narrative requires us to set sound volume at a higher level, to catch every word. Then comes a loud BING! Followed by several other BING!s for good measure. At the audio volume we must set to hear Greger’s voice clearly, the BINGs are much too loud, and blow us across the room.

Surely, that is not the “special effect” desired. Please turn down the BINGs, while keeping Greger’s voice level where it is.

I have been watching this PhD scientists, Valter Longo, who has been doing research on the elderly and longevity for many years, and his SCIENTIFIC conclusions are that a whole plant food diet with fish 3 times per week is the diet that allows people to live the longest. Also, Dr. Longo is proponent of fasting. His ideas are in total contrast to Dr. Greger who says that we should eat NO meat whatsoever, and Dr. Greger has said that fasting is not found in nature. However, may animals hibernate and are in a fasting state of metabolism. I get the idea from reading comments about Dr. Greger and watching a lot of his videos that he is a muncher, or whole food plant snacker, eating throughout the day. This routine of “grazing” would not be recommended by Dr. Valter Longo who has impeccable credentials and also has followed scientific protocols that even Tom Goff cannot possible object to.

You do realise that there is no contradiction between his conclusion “that a whole plant food diet with fish 3 times per week is the diet that allows people to live the longest.” and the recommendation to eat no meat at all?

Note that all of these nutrients are provided by fish. (BTW, Iodine is another nutrient people eating an exclusively plant whole foods diet may need to consider taking).

I see no real contradiction between the views of Longo and Greger. Their analyses of the evidence seem consistent. The only difference is that Greger believes that carefully selected supplements may offer a way to eat an exclusively plant diets without losing the benefits provided by fish AND avoiding the contamination risks accompanying fish consumption.

“His ideas are in total contrast to Dr. Greger” …Well there you have it, his “ideas.” Dr. Greger doesn’t present to us his own personal ideas or theories, he presents to use the greatest evidence and gives recommendations according to that which the best available scientific evidence has to say.
There have been many studies about the longest lived people, and it’s actually the seventh day adventist vegetarians of California and it is my understand that it is the complete vegans among them who are the longest lived.

I would personally rather be given the unadulterated science so I can make up my own mind rather than be taught someone else’s perspective and that is exactly what Dr. Greger offers.

Many scientists believe the oceans will be depleted within many of our lifetimes, so I wonder how much of a solution to health the whole fish craze really is… but incidentally, the science shows that fish are unhealthy for us for a number of reasons and not only due to pollution.

Lastly, this is separate from my appreciation of the pure unbiased science on the subject, but I would like to add this… since humans have no need to exploit or kill other animals for survival, it is morally wrong to do so.

How can you think that eating fish is morally wrong. Jesus ate fish all of the time. Most of his apostles were fishermen. Not only did Jesus and his apostles eat fish, they also ate lamb. Moses and most followers of the Jewish religion find it morally acceptable to eat fish. Catholics used to eat fish only on Good Friday. Muslims eat meat. How do you figure that it is morally wrong to eat fish? Jesus didn’t think it was morally wrong.

You wrote “Jesus ate fish all of the time” …………… you just made that up. Just like you made up the comment about what Jesus thought. How could you possibly know what he thought?

In any case, this is a website about nutrition facts not religion. If you wish to discuss such matters, why not take it up with the 7th Day Adventists who clearly have a somewhat take on this matter. S was talking about ethics not religion. And even ethics are a bit of a stretch here.

Oh…wow…..Tom’s feathers are ruffled. This is a forum about many aspects concerning health. Dr. Greger has written about mammogram’s, has touched a little on fasting, has mentioned exercise, and even reducing stress….so, therefore talking about mental processes such as the placebo effect, meditation should not really upset you. Now, I did not make this up. Tom, go into your private library and get your personal BIBLE out and you can read it yourself that Jesus ate fish with his disciples on the shores of the Sea Of Galilee after his RESURRECTION from the DEAD. And, lets not forget that Jesus by his SUPERNATURAL powers multiplied a few fish and a few pieces of bread to feed around 5000 people. You can also read in your personal Bible that most of the apostles were fishermen. All of this information is found in the oldest copies of the Bible from antiquity. Now, you say that talking about “spiritual things” has nothing to do with HEALTH. Oh…but Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone….but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” In other words, good health is not going to be attained ONLY by eating a whole plant food diet, but good health is also associated to your connection with God……your creator Tom. He is the potter…..you are the clay Tom. God is the programmer….and you Tom are the file.

Bill-
Moral codes are not static. Are you in favor of slavery? (I don’t think Jesus ever condemned it, did he?) We now know that many (if not most) nonhuman animals are sentient and capable of suffering. It seems to me to be a perfectly sensible moral precept to say that inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on non-human animals is immoral. It does not matter what others thought long ago or even, in some quarters, do now. Moral codes change slowly. Just observing that people used to, and still routinely, do something is not a moral argument. It’s a rationalization. As S- said, killing animals for food is unnecessary, and so it’s immoral, because (S- might word it differently) it inflicts unnecessary pain and suffering, violating the moral precept stated above.

G Jesus served as a extension of judism in Christian methodology. A building upon or extension of. One of the most important ceremonies in Judism allows for the keeping of slaves by the jews. How is this so….as in the ceremony, one may read it oneself, slaves of the jews are allowed to participate in the Passover ceremony if they are circumcized.
There is not condemnation of slavery in the Passover ceremony. It is only the slavery of jews which is the problem and reference.

So by inferal then in one of the most important ceremonies slavery is affirmed. Though slavery of jews is admonished.
All the killing of the first borns and all that ,was a response to their god to remove jews from slavery not to remove the idea of slavery.
Jesus could not really stand in against one of the most important things in judism and be considered a extension of that faith.

Southerners of America back in the day were as fervent Christian as they are today, the most in America. It is that their interpretation is consistent with this interpretation.
If you do not know of this perhaps this may aid.If you do disregard.

I don’t understand what your agenda is to come here and try to tear down Dr. Greger.

Okay, what he says about FISH:

“Compared to some of the healthiest foods—for example, fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains—fish are low in antioxidants and phytonutrients, lacking fiber, and do contain some cholesterol and saturated animal fat. While the consumption of whole plant foods has been associated with longer protective telomeres, the tips on each of our chromosomes that keep our DNA from unraveling and fraying, in contrast, consuming refined grains, soda, dairy, and meat, including fish, has been linked to shortened telomeres, a sign of cellular aging.

Unless one can access a time machine and teleport back to the days before the Industrial Revolution, fish will remain the leading source of many toxic pollutants. In 2012, researchers published an analysis of the diets of kids aged two to seven. (Children are thought to be especially vulnerable to chemicals in the diet because they are still growing and thus have a comparatively greater intake of food and fluids relative to their weight.) Chemicals and heavy metals in kids’ bodies from the foods they ate were indeed found to exceed safety levels by a larger margin than in adults. Cancer risk ratios, for instance, were exceeded by a factor of up to 100 or more. For every child studied, benchmark levels were surpassed for arsenic, the banned pesticide dieldrin, and potentially highly toxic industrial by-products called dioxins. They were also too high for DDE, a by-product of DDT.

Which foods contributed the most heavy metals? The number-one food source of arsenic was poultry among preschoolers and, for their parents, tuna. The top source for lead? Dairy. For mercury? Seafood. Eating just a single serving of fish each week during pregnancy, for example, can lead to more mercury in their infant’s body than injecting them directly with about a dozen mercury-containing vaccines.

Where in the food supply are these pollutants found? Today, most DDT comes from meat, particularly fish. The oceans seem to have become, essentially, humanity’s sewer: Everything eventually flows into the sea. The same is true when it comes to dietary exposure to PCBs—another set of banned chemicals. A study of more than 12,000 food and feed samples across 18 countries found that the highest PCB contamination was found in fish and fish oil, followed by eggs, dairy, and then other meats. The lowest contamination was found at the bottom of the food chain, in plants.

Hexachlorobenzene, another pesticide banned nearly a half century ago, today may be found mainly in dairy and meat, including fish. Perfluorochemicals, or PFCs? Overwhelmingly found in fish and other meats. The contaminants in fish may help explain studies showing an association between fish consumption and diabetes. To lower our pollutant exposure, we should try to eat as low on the food chain as possible.”

What he says about longevity and fasting, Dr. Greger said, “Severe caloric restriction has been found to extend the lives of animals in laboratories, and lowers our target of rapamycin, or TOR, which is a major determinant of aging. This caloric restriction can easily be met by reducing animal protein and increasing plant consumption.”

I haven’t heard that comment from him about grazing, nor have I seen a study from him on it.

It is okay to debate scientifically with the information in the videos, but Dr. Greger is doing studies and he is giving us information and you are trying to debunk it without details and it is okay to discuss things, but you don’t have to put him down or anyone else. It doesn’t make your point sounder.

All that and I forgot why I came. A friend of mine started talking about The Plant Paradox guy and tried to talk me away from Soy and Beans and Nightshades (Tomatoes, Potatoes, etc.)

Then, she started talking about Polyphenols, which is one of the things he spoke about in his video that caused him to make his supplement brand and I laughed, because she and I were typing in PubMed articles and texting each other and it came back around to the exact question I had been researching when I couldn’t sleep the other night about Antioxidants in supplement form affecting P53 and causing Cancer to spread versus the Antioxidants in foods. It felt like a God thing, because I had all the answers ahead of time and went straight to lectins and told her to cook her beans and that if she is allergic to nightshades, don’t eat them.

I laugh, because when I first started researching last year, everything confused me, but I went straight to polyphenols and read things like soy and all of the things she is thinking she shouldn’t eat are on the list and I could do the cancer specific lectin thing and I might not be able to explain it like Tom, (and I highly respect you Tom Goff and don’t like that people come here to argue with you and use your name in a dishonoring way. You do not deserve that) but I pre-understood the concepts and I haven’t been a vegan long, but the early onset Alzheimer’s seems to be improving on this diet and I am learning so much.

There are so many intelligent doctors, who have different theories and it is fine to respect them, but I am sad that people are being turned away from the very foods, which are so powerful against Cancer and that they are taking pills, which might cause the cancer in their bodies to spread faster, rather than eating the foods, which are cheaper to begin with.

Bill-
Moral codes are not static. Are you in favor of slavery? (I don’t think Jesus ever condemned it, did he?) We now know that many (if not most) nonhuman animals are sentient and capable of suffering. It seems to me to be a perfectly sensible moral precept to say that inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on non-human animals is immoral. It does not matter what others thought long ago or even, in some quarters, do now. Moral codes change slowly. Just observing that people used to, and still routinely, do something is not a moral argument. It’s a rationalization. As S- said, killing animals for food is unnecessary, and so it’s immoral, because (S- might word it differently) it inflicts unnecessary pain and suffering, violating the moral precept stated above.

God’s moral codes are written in stone: Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not lie. Thou shall not covet. and so on. When you get into moral relativism then you get into problems. The Nazis thought they were morally correct to exterminate millions of Jews, because they felt that they had the science to prove that the Jews were “untermensch”. If morals are not static, then like Shakespeare said, “nothing is either right or wrong, but thinking makes it so”. So, with your way of thinking you have no authority to back up your concept that eating fish is immoral. You only think it is immoral….according to Shakespeare’s quote. As far as Jesus goes, he lived in a time where slavery was common place everywhere. His teaching of love one another as you love yourself would go against the teaching of slavery. Jesus was obviously against slavery if you read all of his teachings in context. Slavery would not fit into his teachings about compassion, humility, and love. Moral relativism on a governmental scale will eventually bring back the Roman forum with gladiators, and wild animal fights, genocide, the same conditions of Sodom and Graham, and yes SLAVERY.

I am not a moral relativist. I believe there are objective moral values but do not expect perfect agreement will ever be reached. Although I am not a Christian, I accept e.g. the 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th as absolute moral principles. Your view seems to be that there are no moral principles outside of those you find in the Christian bible. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that. In any event, this is not the forum for such a debate.

Shakespere was not a religious philosopher, nor even particularly a religious person.
On the keeping of slaves in the south, slaves were considered a race of human but a inferior race. This thinking allowed for the colonization and control of the better part of the world by certain nations. Those considered inferior had to be controlled guided and channeled into productive means. If allowed to go it on their own they would get into trouble and do harm. So a slaveowner was needed to control them and keep them in line. And controlled by colonial nations were the governments those places were allowed. To allow them to guide themselves as they were considered inferior would be a harm producing thing. Only the superior ones could control and govern.
A Christian slaveowner would treat the slaves as himself or even better than himself. If food was scarce the slaves would eat and he would go hungry. To let them free would in essence be a freedom which would cause harm. Natives were considered in this same manner and this thinking allowed for their lands to be put to better use by the European/americans. Though they could not enslave them as they were at one time a force to strong to allow that. Africans were displaced removed to prevent strength and identity. Disorganized and ununited they could be enslaved.

That is how a person may be a slaveowner and a Christian. By treating slaves with kindness and love, as one treats a simple child. Yes you work but we feed and cloth you and see to it you are happy as you may be.
Southerners of that day the white ones were devote Christians as they remain today.
Of course it was all nonsense ideas proprogated with the aim of gaining wealth but that is the story and why it was considered Christian to keep slaves.

I have not heard that. Soy does have some science related to it which supports that notion in a minor fashion.
Google it and post the science. If it exists it will show up in a article about it in the references.

Hi, ron in New Mexico. Googling something is a great way to find a lot of misinformation, and there is plenty of misinformation on the web about soy. There is no need to worry about so-called goitrogenic foods unless you eat unnaturally large quantities of them, or are iodine deficient. You can learn more about this here, and click on the “Sources Cited” link to see the science behind the video. I hope that helps!

If that is to complex to read and understand let me boil it down for you…
that is a result of 14 studies reviewed done by the NIH with one conclusion as per their findings..
” In addition, there remains a theoretical concern based on in vitro and animal data that in individuals with compromised thyroid function and/or whose iodine intake is marginal soy foods may increase risk of developing clinical hypothyroidism.

@ronInNm when a study’s findings say “doing xyz may [ / could / might ] cause abc based on in vitro and animal tests only” how much is that to be considered as qualified evidence based support for whatever was in that statement as compared to studies that say “dong xyz has be shown to produce a ##% chance of abc happening with a p value < 0.05 based on rct involving humans"?

Hi, Virginia. This misleading idea keeps making the rounds on the internet, and the topic was covered here nearly a decade ago. Large quantities of raw cruciferous vegetables may interfere with thyroid function in those with marginal iodine intake, so it is important to make sure you get enough iodine. This is not true for cooked cruciferous vegetables, as the compound that causes this effect is destroyed by cooking. You can learn more about this here and here. You don’t want to overdo it with the iodine, though. More on that topic here. I hope that helps!

“The fear of eating cruciferous vegetables or that people with hypothyroidism should reduce or avoid the consumption of kale or other cruciferous vegetables (circulating the internet) is unfounded and does a disservice to the community. Whether you have normal thyroid function or hypothyroidism, there is no benefit for you to avoid or restrict your intake of cruciferous vegetables. … The scientific consensus is that cruciferous vegetables could only be detrimental to thyroid function in cases of very high intake accompanied by significant iodine deficiency.13,14”

On soy: “Soy isoflavone intake is linked to reduced risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and cardiovascular disease.15,23 Soy phytoestrogens could theoretically interfere with thyroid hormone synthesis and metabolism, but the effects are not thought to be clinically relevant in healthy individuals. “

At minute 4:35-4:45 it lists the types of beverages you can use to get your daily fluid/water intake and in that list is coffee, presumably implying black coffee. How does this option hold up in light of recent news where CA is going to start making starbucks and other coffee shops include a warning label stating that it includes cancer causing ingredients? See “coffee cancer warning starbucks” search hits.

Just another blogger here Ella expressing opinion but I guess it would depend on what you are using flax for.
On a general basis many people substitute hemp or chia seeds for flax. I have even heard of ground up sunflower seeds.

The benefits of flaxseeds largely come from their omega-3 fats, lignans, and fiber. If you’re allergic to flaxseeds:
-Omega-3s from sea plants have DHA and EPA, the most useable forms of omega-3s. A marine plant omega-3 supplement could do the job. Whole foods that are healthy sources of ALA like in flax include spinach, tomatoes, and broccoli.
-Lignans are antioxidant and have phytoestrogens (which either act like estrogren when the estrogen effect is good, or block estrogen receptors when the estrogen effect could be bad). While flax has far and away the most lignans, they are also found in other seeds, including sunflower, whole grains, cruciferous vegetables including kale, and many fruits, especially apricots, strawberries, and peaches.
-Fiber is found in whole plant foods, including whole fruits, whole vegetables, whole grains, and beans/legumes.

If you eat a varied, whole food, plant based diet, even if you can’t include flax, you’ll get plenty of phytonutrients of every kind!

Have you read The Plant Paradox yet, there’s even less we can eat. Dr. Gundry says his patients cut out the lectins found in a lot of these healthy and recommended foods to rid themselves of their ills and feel healthy. I am beginning to get ‘food phobic’!

@Jenny i’m in the habit now of vetting any new supposed issue with whole food plant based nutrition against the nutrionfacts.org search hits. For example if you search on “lectins” you’ll find a hit entitled “Dr. Gundry’s The Plant Paradox is Wrong” that dr. greger thankfully did to dispel exactly what is stated in the book you mention. I constantly remind myself of his motto which is sticking to evidence based guidance, i.e. theories that have been put to the test and proven to be true through properly carried out randomized control test studies and preferably on humans not small mammals.

if you haven’t already watch this dr. greger recent ted talk for his latest end2end story on wfpb nutrition and what it does to your statistical chances for a healthy future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKaOL2IBPY

The paleo community is extremely anti-phytates and lectins and do not eat foods such as grains and beans. However, Dr. Greger and the WFPB community have very different views on phytates and lectins. These views are evidence-based. Foods such as beans that contain phytates are very nutritious and healthy!

From Dr. G- “Phytates are actually good for us; they have a wide range of health-promoting properties, such as anticancer activity. But because it binds up some of the minerals, that just means one just has to eat more whole healthy plant foods—or eat mineral absorption enhancers , such as garlic and onions.”

I notice in the news today that there is a great potential for WW III to start over in Syria. American ships are headed to Syria and will be in confrontation with Russian military forces. My question is, if there is a huge war, which of Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen would be the best one to stock pile for food? And what does Dr. Greger recommend for storing water and how much water? Should I stock pile black beans or rice?

If beans/lentils/grains do not serve you well, I can recommend a boiled tubers-diet. Personally, I find boiled sweet potatos to be one of the tastiest foodstuffs I’ve ever encountered. Boiled regular potato although bland, is probably the best staple for my own anatomy. Coupled with boiled carrots and beets. With these four earth-dwellers me and my tummy is mighty content. Don’t get me wrong, if beans worked for me I would be all over them..

I’m confused about the serving sizes. In the video they are stated in imperial (cups), in the book How not to die they are stated in metric (grams).
In the app, both.
In the video and app a serving size of cooked beans is 1/2 cup, which weighs out to be approx 75g. However, in the book and app a serving size is 130g.
Likewise with cooked grains, the video and app a serving size is 1/2 cup, which weighs out to be approx 60g. In the book and app a serving size is 100g.
????

In talks on this site and elsewhere, e.g. therapeutic fasting 12 minute overview of its impact on diabetes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a2Fsfa8e4I, dr. greger and others sometimes refer to “carbs” in a negative context but don’t clarify if they are referring to “simple carbs” that as I understand it come from processed/refined foods versus “complex carbs” that come from whole plant based foods.

Should one assume that when “carbs” are being referred to as bad the speaker is referring to “simple carbs” that come from processed/refined foods versus “complex carbs” that come from whole plant based foods? I’d like to get clarification because so many people that I refer to nutritionfacts.org and its insights on the benefits of wfpb nutrition immediately fire back with their belief that “carbs” are the root of all evil.

The bad carbs are the refined carbs and sugar, they are part from the simple carbs. In the other hand, vegetables are also carbs but they are the kind of carbs you should include in your diet. This is the reason why many experts say that carbs are not the devil.

That I thought was the case but wasn’t sure. Given that isn’t it very misleading when people giving talks or writing articles simply refer to “carbs” instead of “simple carbs” and “complex carbs” when talking about carbs that are bad for you versus the ones known to be good for you?

As noted earlier having clarity on this matter is significant given how many folks are running around basing their nutritional habits on media and other fad diet discussion making use of the work “carb” and folks interpreting that to mean anything that isn’t a pure protein and/or fat, i.e. meat.

. . . and in the above response and elsewhere when folks refer to sugar as a “simple carb” are they referring to the sugars added to refined/processed foods and not the sugar that naturally occurs in whole plant food?

In other words is the sugar you get when eating a whole carrot, tomato and blueberry considered a “complex carb” given its naturally occurring in the whole plant food and is being ingested along side all the fiber and other naturally occurring components that regulate how much your body cranks up insulin levels in order to process that sugar?

Hi, myusrn. The short answer to your question is yes. When you eat whole plant foods, you get the sugars in context with the fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other phytonutrients that work synergistically in your body. “Simple carbs,” as many people refer to them, are found in refined foods such as white sugar and white flour. Just remember that carbs are macronutrients found in most foods, and not a food or food group. I hope that helps!

Hi, im from Peru and appreciate a lot your work! I’ve got a question, your recommended serving size or the quantity you are recommending of some food are based on the average person right? Between 70-75 kg, 1.75 cm, do some exercises. Or which is your standard because every person requires different amount of nutrients to keep healthy right?

As a body builder I try to avoid estrogenic foods. I noticed that on your daily dozen you mention flax seeds. Did you know that flax seeds are very estrogenic. You also mentioned beans on your list. Did you know that black beans are also very estrogenic. So, if you are eating flax seeds and black beans everyday you may not get the muscle growth that you are looking for, because body builders are looking for foods that boost testosterone production such as cabbage, kale, spinach, swiss chard, and beet greens. I also take a 5mg zinc supplement because zinc helps to increase testosterone. I also east a can of tuna only once a week which has omega 3’s and helps to boost testosterone. The tuna is the only meet I eat which is once a week. I already know about ocean pollution and mercury levels. Everything in life is a risk. I bet there are some people who are consuming to much flax seed and getting to much estrogen in their system.

if you see this livestrong.com link that I found at the top of a “flax seeds estrogenic” search result that states

Adding flaxseeds to the diet can actually have an anti-estrogenic effect, meaning that it can cause the body to produce less-active forms of estrogen rather than more. This has the potential to protect women, especially after menopause, from estrogen-receptive cancers such as breast, uterine and ovarian.

the question here rather than exchanging the myrid of internet articles that state things as being one way or the other on this matter is what qualified properly done studies exist on the matter and what conclusions do they provide. Same thing for “black beans estrogen” matter.

. . . and the other question here is are plant estrogens / phytoestrogens reacting the same in ones body as estrogens from meat. A quick search on “plant estrogen vs meat estrogen” turns up lots of results like this one stating “Another study[3] examined natural body builders who didn’t use steroids but who ate high animal protein diets. Their testosterone levels dropped by 75% in the months leading up to a competition.”

. . . and nutritionfacts.org | search “phytoestrogens” has lots of talks on this subject, e.g. this one which basically says phytoestrogens do go things in our bodies as opposed to other mechanisms that raise estrogen levels like meat or supplements.

John-
I find your statement interesting but am not convinced the foods you list lower testosterone. In 2003 at age 57, I was eating fish (tuna, salmon, sardines) 2-3 times per week, yogurt, and taking whey protein daily (including 30g post workout) as part of my goal to pack on muscle, but no other animal products. My testosterone was only 368. In 2016, I dropped all animal products and at the age of 70 had my testosterone retested. It had risen to 789! I still lift weights regularly, but am naturally quite skinny (a classic “hard gainer”). My WFP diet includes lots of beans, tofu, soymilk, and ground flaxseeds (1-2 TBL per day). It does not seem that those foods have had a deleterious effect on my testosterone. Just one person’s experience, I know.

I have not been able to find any scientific studies supporting the view that so-called pro-estrogenic foods lower testosterone. Do you know of any?

Hi there,
I am slightly confused with the servings of whole grains.
When you say 50 grams of cold cereal, does this apply to any grain that has not yet been cooked (50 grams of uncooked brown rice, oats, quinoa etc.) and if so does this mean that the 100 grams of hot cereal is the equivalent of 50 grams of grains cooked?
I’m just a little confused as I use 50 grams of dry oats for breakfast but I add 500mls of water to it.
Thank you,

I’m confused about the serving sizes. In the app serving sizes are shown in imperial (cups) and in metric (grams).
A serving size of cooked beans in imperial is 1/2 cup, which weighs out to be approx 75g. However, the metric states it’s 130g?
Likewise with cooked grains, an imperial serving size is 1/2 cup, which weighs out to be approx 60g. Tho in metric it’s 100g??

Hi, Ii had the same doubt. However, given the importance of beans, I supposed that, since the weight of a fruit is in average 120 gr, the weight of beans should be higher. So I think, 130 gr, (3 servings/day) is correct. A bowl, three times.
Regards

Hi Asher, thanks for your question. Although it is a bit of a challenge to put on weight on Plant based whole food. I could suggest increaing portion sizes and or using cashew nut and other nut butters to make creamy sauces and adding to food.

Just want to say a big thank you and God bless you to everyone who has contributed one way or another to deliver this information to us in such a concise manner; making it easy to understand and share with friends, family and loves ones. You’re saving lives and adding life to our years. I hope you get an inkling into the contribution you’re making. You’re not just an editor, graphic designer, researcher etc; you’re changing lives and making our lives fuller not with things but with vibrancy, health, energy, pleasant memories, joy etc. I have experienced a renewed awareness of what I eat and this has made me healthier physically and mentally. It’s also helping so many around me. I’m not perfect yet but I’m getting better everyday.

Does anyone have any good, filling snack ideas? I tried doing Dr. G’s zombie popcorn today but it gave me a horrible stomach ache and reminded me of why I haven’t eaten popcorn in so long-I think I have a sensitivity to it. I also do oil free baked sweet potato fries with hummus, but I want some more variety. Any ideas would help a ton!

My goto filler food is a handful of walnuts or cashews or an apple or a banana. That said watch some of dr. jason fung’s talks on therapeutic fasting [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iatPAjf5I_Y ] he covers the insulin, leptin and ghrelin hormone effects on your feelings of being full or hungry. The evidence he is sharing says american’s eat with too much frequency, and this is having significant negative health effects. So perhaps it is good to also understand that hunger is just a hormone driven feeling and not representative of a physical need, unless you are down to 0% body fat. The message being its better if you can to cram all your [wfpb] daily calories down in fewer sittings and cut out snacking.

I have heard of this and probably will practice it later on, but I’m trying to gain weight at the moment. I really like high volume snacks like sweet potatoes and hummus, but I can’t seem to find anything else that satiates me as much as potatoes do and I kind of want to switch it up sometimes

Potatoes are at the top of the leptin triggering satiety chart so they are going to make you feel full and keep you from feeling like you can eat more, covered well in this dr jason fung talk [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXXGxoNFag4 ]. If you want to be able to eat more wfpb foods than you find yourself currently being able to wolf down in a day then choose options that are lower on the satiety chart. The challenge I would see is that if you are having to spread that higher daily caloric intake out over many sittings throughout the day then the evidence is suggesting this can create insulin resistance. If it were me I would look to keep frequency of eating low and introduce calorie dense foods with low satiety rating to put on weight . . . but then dr. fung’s presented evidence suggests that to some extent your body will increase its basal metabolic rate [bmr] to accommodate this new higher daily caloric intake. Seems like an evidence backed and tested story for gaining weight in a health way would be a great topic for coverage in a future dr. greger blog/video.

Soy or almond yogurt with granola and hemp seeds; smoothies with a combo of carbs (fruits, veggies) and fats/proteins (seeds, nut butters); veggie sticks with hummus or guac; chia seed pudding; whole grain toast with nut butter, avocado, or hummus… check out ‘pick up limes’ on youtube for nutritionally balanced snack ideas. I recommend her because she is a RD and a great cook!

This is something that I do everyday. I include the daily dozen. It’s so easy to do. I”m used to eating fresh and having all ingredients in my pantry. I’ve been doing this before this daily dozen video came out or this wonderful ap that I got my loved one to download. It’s good to see that what I’ve been doing being validated with this information. Thank you so much for educating the public on this way of eating.

Does anyone have any tips on eating out and avoiding oil? I like eating at home because it makes me feel best and most energized, but there are certain situations that I have to go out in and I never feel satisfied, and afterwords, I feel crappy. I know I could probably get steamed rice and veggies at an Asian restaurant, but they never seem to have unfried tofu or any other protein options. Also, they never seem to have it on the menu and that leads to complications with price and all. Any tips would be great. Thanks!

My family and I have this problem too. Our solution is that we eat a lot of Thai food and Japanese food. At Thai restaurants, you can typically get stir fried veggies that have very little oil, and you can ask to minimize the oil. Always make sure that you ask for no MSG and no “fish sauce”. They usually have “spring rolls” too but ask for no noodles and no shrimp or tofu. Avoid all Thai curries as well due to high fat content. For Japanese, we order “sushi” which is veggie rolls of all types. The problem that we continue to run into is the sodium content of all these foods which is all very high, so we eat out less and less as time goes on. Don’t forget that the average protein content of fruits and veggies is about 5%, which is optimal for human health so you don’t need to search for protein.

Yea, Thai and Japanese are always a good idea. I actually made little business card type things this morning that said I was a SOS(salt oil sugar) free vegan and I listed what I do and don’t eat on them. I’m planning on giving them to the waiter when I go out in hopes that she will give it to the cook.

Dr. Greger, I’m doing better at getting my Daily Dozen as I continue to work at it. But, I get worried that I might be “overdosing” on some nutrients without knowing it. For instance, my favorite nut is the brazil nut but I try to restrain myself from getting too much because of your video referencing selenium toxicity. And soy is by far the easiest bean to incorporate into my diet, but I know that more than a few servings have been shown to be detrimental to health. And then you have the video about too much turmeric increasing kidney stone production. I’m sure the list goes on, and they are important things to know about and keep track of.

So, I’m wondering what other substances I might be ingesting regularly that could result in “too much of a good thing.” Things that you mentioned in a video but I missed it. Could you make it a category on your “browse videos by topic” page, or address this issue in a video or blog post? It would be great to have all of the “don’t overdo it” warnings in one place. Like, a list of food that are healthy but have a limit to their healthfulness, and the recommended amount to stay under for good health.

Hi this is Dr. Sozanski, PHD in Naturopathy and Health Support Volunteer for Nutritionfacts. Several steps to an answer: one, fruits and vegetables are whole foods and therefore the most bioavailable food in nature; I do not treat them differently; however I do look at the nutrient content, including micro nutrients, calories, sugar and fiber; this is how you differentiate and you can get to focused nutrition; you may also want to think of eating fruit in the morning, because of high contents in sugar in water, which makes them hydrating, refreshing and mild liver detoxifiers; other thoughts are that fruit should not be eaten as desert, particularly after a heavy meal, as they will spent longer time in the stomach, start to ferment and loose some nutritional value while waiting for the digestion of the rest of the meal; in contrast vegetables should always accompany a meal or be the meal.
On the question of the fat facilitating absorption of some micronutrients, absolutely yes: all fat soluble vitamins will be better absorbed when in company of fat: think plant food containing vitamin D (like mushrooms), E (like spinach, avocado, turnip greens and squash), A (like lycopene in tomatoes lutein and zeaxantin in corn, squash, pumpkin and spinach)… all of these should be accompanied by mono unsaturated fats, like olive oil, or grape seed oil, and preferably uncooked… and of course there are those who come with their own fat, like avocados, nuts and seeds a wonderful plethora of fat soluble nutrients.
I hope this helps. Dr. Sozanski

Hi, Dr. Greger.
I have a question.
I am familiar with your daily dozen chart. But , I have some doubts as to where (in which category) to locate some vegetables.
For example, is leek a cruciferous, green or other vegetable?
The answer is needed in order to calculate the grams of the subclasses of vegetables.
Kind regards,
Marcelo

Can someone please tell me under what checkbox do Tofu, brown rice, and chia seeds belong in the app? I’m sorry but it does not appear very clear to me. As the husk in brown rice has to be removed before you eat it, is it therefore not a whole grain? I also don’t see the mention of Tofu or Chia within the informational icon in the app.

“Note: If you’re eating cups a day (as everyone should!) of dark green leafy vegetables I would recommend sticking to low-oxalate greens (i.e. basically any greens other than spinach, swiss chard, and beet greens).”

Hi Duane Whitty,
Thanks for your question, Dr Grger indicates that, oxalates do bind up calcium in vegetables, though, so spinach and beet greens are therefore not good sources of calcium (though wonderful foods in their own right!) Healthy sources of calcium include: kale, broccoli, collards, beans, tofu, dried figs, fortified plant-milks, and even blackstrap molasses – one of the healthiest sweeteners you can use! Calcium needs for adults 19-50 years old is 1,000 mg per day. Adults older than 50 need 1,200 mg of calcium per day, but calcium recommendations vary greatly by country.

Thank you both, gengogakusha and Spring03. So would Dr. Greger’s advice be to make kale and arugula the mainstay of one’s greens and only supplementing with spinach? Also, if the oxylates in spinach et. al. can bind calcium then should we eat our high calcium vegetables separately from when we eat our spinach? Thank you both for you time and effort!

Hi Duane Whitty, another way of reducing oxalate is method of cooking. Boiling markedly reduced soluble oxalate content by 30-87% and was more effective than steaming (5-53%) and baking (used only for potatoes, no oxalate loss). I would say that your idea would be good too to have high calcium vegetables separately from when we eat spinach.Effect of different cooking methods on vegetable oxalate content.

I would just make sure to rotate your greens which has many benefits other than reducing this build up of oxalates.

I drink green smoothies on the morning and every couple of days I use a different green. I do think spinach is the easy option in smoothies but if you don’t play around with other greens then you also don’t get the benefit of other veggies too.

I’ve found courgette, cauliflower and parsley work particularly well in smoothies.

In terms of greens, is it better to eat them raw or cooked. I only like spinach raw and have been trying to decrease my consumption and replace it with other greens, but I only like other greens if they are cooked. I can’t stand raw kale(yes I’ve tried massaging it) and when I cook it, I love it and could eat mountains of it. I know it’s better than just eating spinach or no greens at all, but I’m just curious if I am harming the nutritional contents of the kale when I cook it.

Cooking does change the chemistry of greens somewhat, but don’t let that stop you. Many of the components, like cellulose, won’t be changed at all. I don’t like raw kale either, but keep in mind that you don’t need to cook it all the way through. I like my kale blanched such that I put it in boiling water for about 30 seconds. That gets rid of the bitter taste and hard texture for me. Raw is best as long as you enjoy what you’re eating. If not, do what you have to do to enjoy it or you won’t end up eating the healthy foods you need in the long run.

I have been following the Daily Dozen for several months with outstanding results. As I watch Dr. Gregor’s videos I see he recommends 250 mg of Micro-Algae based DHA/day. Shouldn’t this be added to the Vitamin section to ensure that people don’t miss it.

Thank you so much for your response! I have other questions though… what about basic potatoes? Other vegetables?
How about tofu? One would think beans.
Would parley and dill? Would they also qualify as greens?

Hi, Andrei Vladimir Volintiru. You can get details about the Daily Dozen by reading the book, How Not To Die, or by downloading the Daily Dozen app, if you have a smart phone or other similar device. In the app, if you tap the little, circled letter i near each category heading, you will access a description of foods included and serving sizes, and links to videos on specific foods, where applicable.
Potatoes are included in “Other Vegetables,” tofu is included in “Beans,” as you surmised, and parsley and dill are included in the “Spices” category. I hope that helps!

In the app, Dr. Greger specifies mostly dark leafy greens in the greens category so I would aim for those as part of your daily intake and add lighter lettuces to the vegetables category. Hope that helps!

I’m trying to make a list of stuff based off the video, I really don’t know most of the fruit in the “other fruit” slide to make proper notes, starting at 3:10, would someone be able to send me or respond to me a list of those so that I can start on this WFPBD thing please. :)

Hi Jay, congratulations on the changes you are making! Basically, any fruit counts as “other fruit” – apples, mangos, citrus, peaches, etc, etc. If you have an iPhone or Android, you can also download “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” app for free from your app store. Within the app there are examples of foods for each category. And feel free to continue asking questions here on the site, as there are many helpful people on here!

Very fast response, I appreciate it. :) I have watched the video and downloaded the app! I’m a rather fit individual but was recently told by my Dr that I have a predisposition to high cholesterol I’m sitting at 163 right now or 9 for my LDL, trying to see what I can do to change it for the better, why not try something new.

According to the daily dozen, Dr. Greger recommends two servings of leafy greens a day. The imperial measurement lists a serving as one cup and the metric as 60g. I’ve been doing some measuring, and the other items all seem to match up. But, for greens, when I measure out 120g, which would be 2 servings, it comes out to 4 cups, not 2. So the recommended metric amount is twice the recommended imperial amount. So now I’m curious. Does Dr. Greger recommend weighing or measuring greens by volume?

Thanks for your question! Soy milk doesn’t count as a serving of beans in our book, but tofu does! Beans themselves are also a fantastic option. :) Soy milk would be more appropriate for the beverage category. It doesn’t count as beans since there’s no fiber like you would see in a bean, so it isn’t nutritionally equivalent.

I’m a little confused because at 3:02 there’s a picture of concord grapes..The transcript says :
A serving of berries is a half-cup fresh or frozen, or a quarter-cup of dried. While, biologically speaking, avocados, bananas, and even watermelons are technically berries, I’m using the colloquial term for any small edible fruit—which is why I include kumquats and grapes and raisins, as well as fruits that are typically thought of as berries, but actually technically aren’t, such as blackberries, cherries, mulberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

I am so confused!
Daily Dozen recommends 3 servings of legumes & 3 servings of whole grains but if I eat that way (along with other fruits and veggies, obviously) I get to almost 70 grams protein, which is way too much for my body weight of 54kg (I get 40g from the grains and beans as well as 30g from stuff like like brussel sprouts, broccoli, some almonds, nutritional yeast which I can remove but it’s only like.. 5g of protein and still puts me way above my recommended intake).
I’m not trying to get more protein, it just finds me and I have no idea how to restrict protein without restricting calories since whole grains have so much!
Since Dr. Greger does not recommend potatoes I can try and supplement calories from sweet potatoes but then my beta-carotene will shoot up (it’s already like at 1000%) and I’m really not interested in becoming orange.

Thank you for your comment. The Daily Dozen is a general recommendation for everybody and we suggest adjusting as necessary for your preferences if it’s too much food or beta-carotene intake, for example.

Hi everyone! Thinking about buying Dr. Gregor’s book How to Not Die (lol) but I have a blood clotting disorder (homozygous Factor V Leiden) so very high risk to develop a clot. I’m very healthy though and only take a baby aspirin daily. Haven’t had any issues since I was 24 when I had 2 superficial clots due to birth control (I’m now 31). Does anyone happen to know if this book is helpful for people who are supposed to avoid foods rich in a vitamin K?! Thanks everyone!

How Not to Die is an informational book, not an eating plan, so you should be able to take the information and apply to your individual needs. We always try to remind people that even the Daily Dozen Checklist is just a recommendation based on Dr. Greger’s research, but should be adapted as needed. I hope that helps!

Are freeze dried foods healthy? I’m wondering if one good way to get the daily dozen is through these freeze dried meals which incorporate the daily dozen?https://www.goleafside.com What are your thoughts on our ability to absorb nutrients from the daily dozen in freeze dried foods? Thanks–

I think more starches are needed. Plant-based diets should be starch-based. This risks to be too few calories for active people. How many calories would Greger’s diet be on average? Fairly active people need at least 2000-2500…

Thanks for the video it explains a lot. I officially understand and there is no need to over think this. I’m trying to get back into good habits by eating as much veggies and fruits as possible. The app is as simple as could be. I just needed a little more info just because I think I was over complicating things. Today I didn’t do as good as yesterday and it is a lot of food for me. So I’m going to do what works for me making sure to check off as much as I can. I am trying to get more veggies in. Thanks again this good tool.

I’ve heard from a naturopath that it is not good to have the same thing daily and to aim to have the same thing no more than 4x a week. The rationale I heard was for allergy development if one has the same thing too much.

I have also heard this claim, but have never been shown compelling data to support it. I have also heard that claim that if you don’t expose yourself to certain foods that you can develop allergies to them, which doesn’t make much sense either. I would ask your naturopath for whatever studies they are referencing, because if there is some good data suggesting those claims, it would be great to know!
If you look at one of the most healthy populations in the world, the Okinawans, they eat nearly 70% of their calories from a single type of food, sweet potatoes. Variety in ones diet is certainly important to expose yourself to more overall nutrition, but having healthy staples in ones diet, such as sweet potatoes, beans, and oats is never something to shy away from.

Evidence-based medicine is what this site is all about. If you believe this, like I do, then you might try this: If your doctor makes recommendations, ask for a peer-reviewed published clinical study supporting their recommendation. Without that, it may just be medical superstition which can cause more harm than good. All the recommendations I make to my patients are fully supported by medical literature. If I base a recommendation on experience alone, I warn the patient of this.

Abstract
Sulforaphane is a naturally occurring isothiocyanate in cruciferous vegetables. Sulforaphane inhibits histone deacetylases, leading to the transcriptional activation of genes including tumor suppressor genes. The compound has attracted considerable attention in the chemoprevention of prostate cancer. Here we tested the hypothesis that sulforaphane is not specific for tumor suppressor genes but also activates loci such as long terminal repeats (LTRs), which might impair genome stability. Studies were conducted using chemically pure sulforaphane in primary human IMR-90 fibroblasts and in broccoli sprout feeding studies in healthy adults. Sulforaphane (2.0 μM) caused an increase in LTR transcriptional activity in cultured cells. Consumption of broccoli sprouts (34, 68 or 102 g) by human volunteers caused a dose dependent elevation in LTR mRNA in circulating leukocytes, peaking at more than a 10-fold increase. This increase in transcript levels was associated with an increase in histone H3 K9 acetylation marks in LTR 15 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from subjects consuming sprouts. Collectively, this study suggests that sulforaphane has off-target effects that warrant further investigation when recommending high levels of sulforaphane intake, despite its promising activities in chemoprevention.

i have been following Doctor Greger recommendations but recently I found this in a review in the journal Science about flaxseeds supplementation and prostate cancer
Dietary fat: From foe to friend?
David S. Ludwig, Walter C. Willett, Jeff S. Volek, Marian L. Neuhouser
Science November 2018
Ludwig et al., Science 362, 764–770 (2018)

“Specific types of fats may influence prostate cancer risk, possibly as a result of effects on cell signaling and other cancer-related pathways. In the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial and the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial, higher blood measures of omega-3 (N-3) fatty acids, particularly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), were associated with increased risks of both total and high-grade prostate cancer (46, 47). These findings are consistent with a study in which prostate cancer patients were randomly assigned to flaxseed supplements [a rich source of the N-3 fat a-linolenic acid (ALA)] or placebo (48). The supplement led to increased tumor proliferation and higher prostate-specific antigen (PSA) at prostatectomy. However, the clinical implications remain unknown; research is needed to determine whether specific fatty acids should be reduced in people at risk for specific cancers”

Why do you interfere so much at one time, for different types of protein different enzymes are released, at first one type of carbohydrate is digested, then only the second. I think our body can not perevarit a lot of mixed at one time. This is described in the book by Herbert Shelton.